SIEMENS, headquartered in Berlin and Munich, is a global company with a focus on electrification, automation and digitalization. With over 379,000 employees in 190 countries (including 118,000 in Germany alone) and an annual turnover of 83 billion euros (FY 2017/2018), the listed group is one of the largest companies in the world.
CUSTOMER: SIEMENS
INDUSTRY: Industry, Energy Management, Health Care
PROJECT: 8MF 3D control cabinet configurator
SOLUTION: Configurators / 3D solutions
TECHNOLOGIES:CadClick®, easyKAT®, React.js
The product portfolio of configurable control cabinets at SIEMENS is extremely complex and varied. More than 90 housings and 2,000 accessories pose a challenge for every configuration. In its search for experts in 3D solutions and the configuration of complex products, SIEMENS finally turned to us. Not only the sales staff, but also the customers themselves should be able to configure complete control cabinets. However, the more complex the task, the more error-prone the entire process is, which is why visual feedback is almost indispensable for this task. Normal configurators (without 3D components) lack this comprehensive control instance. If the process chain is not continuous and data has to be re-entered again and again, the susceptibility to errors increases even further. And that’s not all: if a customer wanted cut-outs in the side walls, for example, they had to send a paper sketch to the factory “in the same way”, which also involved more work for everyone involved.
To implement the project, we worked closely with the “SIEMENS Competence Center for Configuration” and the SIEMENS “Infrastructure & Cities Sector – Low and Medium Voltage Division – Low Voltage & Products”. Together with other SIEMENS departments, six locations were interlinked in an agile project. The 3D control cabinet configurator, which was seamlessly integrated into the existing system infrastructure, makes configuration easier for both sales staff and customers. The final product is visualized realistically, can be viewed from all sides and can be adapted according to individual requirements – including colour design and special requests such as cut-outs. The enclosure configurator was presented at SPS IPC Drives in Nuremberg in November 2018. It was officially put into operation at the Hannover Messe in April 2019.
