se

software4efficiency by EPLAN and CIDEON # 01.2019

# Chance

Impulses for Change

Integrated To the Airborne
Value Chain Future Observatory
Eplan and Rittal offer Rolf Lisse from Cideon SOFIA takes off
joint solutions. discusses chances. with Eplan.
02 Editorial

When Change
Becomes a
Chance: Let’s Get
Ready for the
Digitised Future!

Sebastian Seitz is Chief Executive Officer

of Eplan and Cideon.

Digitisation means change – and making your company ­ready

means starting with the data structure of business processes.
Eplan can support you with comprehensive process guidance
and future-proof software solutions and services. We’re also
embracing this chance to transform: Eplan ePULSE will soon
bring together data and projects, disciplines and engineers
worldwide into an exceptional network. During the develop-
ment process, we’re facing our own challenges from the change
process and utilising the chances it offers.
Yet suitable technologies and methodologies aren’t the only
things that matter. The human factor remains crucial, as does
a management team that actively promotes change. Accord-
ing to the IBM study Making Change Work, 83 per cent of the
professionals surveyed viewed top management sponsorship
as the single most important aspect for successful change. A
shared vision was mentioned by 64 per cent, and 57 per cent
cited a corporate culture that motivates and promotes change.
Anyone who wants to put their own mark on the digital trans-
formation will need allies who are working on the challenges
of the future. We at Eplan and Cideon are actively driving dig-
ital change. Our goal is to attain maximum efficiency and inter-
connectivity across all disciplinary, systemic and geographic
boundaries. Let’s embrace the chances that the digital trans-
formation holds for all of us!

Sebastian Seitz
CEO of Eplan and Cideon

s4e # 01.2019
 03

Contents
Focus 28
06
The Art of Change
Companies must continually change to
stay abreast of the competition.

12 To the Future
Rolf Lisse at Cideon finds the trend is
Change Is an clearly heading to the cloud.
(In)sensitive Issue
How to successfully manage
change processes.
30
From Trade Show to Workflow
14 Putting processes to the test.

When Change
Becomes a Chance
CEO Sebastian Seitz talks about change
at Eplan and Cideon.
Integration
Fokus 09
34
06 Escape from
the Data Jungle
Solutions for a uniform database.

36
Airborne Observatory
How Eplan helps research the universe.

Wir sind
neugierig, 40
probieren es 120 Metres Up
aus, fallen hin, Nordex relies on Eplan software.

stehen wieder
Contactauf
the und
Editorial
versuchen
­D epartment
42
Please es erneut. Under One Roof
Trends
e-mail your thoughts,
suggestions or critiques to: Sartorius introduces SAP
PLM for the first time.
redaktion@eplan.de
redaktion@cideon.com
18 Standards
Where Have All the Pros Gone?
An integrated value chain counters
the skills shortage. 02 Editorial

04 Compact
24 46 Last But Not Least
Food for thought
How managers see digitisation. 47 Service/Publication Details
04
Compact
#TeamTuesday, a social media project by trainees, provides
a behind-the-scenes look at Eplan and Cideon.
#TeamTuesday
Each year, Eplan and Cideon
welcome new starters to their
transnational trainee pro-
gramme, whose subject areas
include sales, consulting and
software development. In addi-
tion to on-the-job training, train-
ees participate in a sidebar pro-
gramme offering soft skills
training, mentoring and an
opportunity to spend time
abroad. Moreover, each trainee
class is assigned a challenge
For information and testimonials about the various career
options, visit www.eplan.de/career or www.cideon.com/career
News
that it must master as a group;
the results are presented to the
Management Board. “Our group
developed a social media cam-
paign for Eplan and Cideon,”
says Eplan Austria online mar-
keting trainee Jessica Karkheck.
“We want to show our follow-
ers how the company works
behind the scenes, highlight-
ing teamwork and having fun,”
adds Eplan UK marketing train-
ee Georgina Battey.
s4e # 01.2019
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP
United VARs is the leading alliance
of SAP solution providers for SMEs.
Cideon has been a member of this
network since late 2018 and has used
its expertise to expand the United
VARs portfolio while broadening its
own consulting business internation-
ally. End customers benefit from the
partnership’s pool of expertise and
standardised support, especially in
the area of global business. The alli-
ance consists of fifty VAR (Value ­Added
Reseller) market leaders operating in
over ninety countries. Ten thousand
certified SAP consultants serve more
than eight thousand customers world-
wide. To ensure the best possible ser-
vice, potential United VARs members
must provide assurance through their
SAP research and consultation that
they are among the best companies
in their regions.
WORLDWIDE VIRTUAL
The Eplan Virtual Fair on 21 May 2019
will be even more international than
in previous years. Participants from
CEOs to software users can look for-
ward to exciting topics related to cut-
ting-edge efficient engineering and
integrated process optimisation, as
well as practical usage tips. Virtual
pavilions will offer visitors from all over
the world a personalised consultation
in their native languages. The fair will
now be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.,
an extension of its virtual opening
hours to allow attendees everywhere
to log in during their regular working
hours.
Registration:
www.eplan.de/virtualfair

Save the Date!
Cideon Solution Days 2019 a presentation of the new
will take place on 25 and 26 Cideon Cloud CAD Integration
September at the Hyperion (CCI).
Hotel Dresden am Schloss. Registration:
Programme highlights include www.cideon.com/solutiondays
Webcast
Live Wire
What does efficient wire harness design with Eplan
Harness proD look like? This question can best be
answered by a company like Voltabox, because the
lithium ion battery systems provider is already hav-
ing success working with the software. Voltabox
will soon pre­sent a webcast on its experiences and
best practices with Eplan Harness proD. Afterwards,
Eplan experts will be available to answer specific
questions. The webcast will begin on 12 April 2019
at 9 a.m. in German and at 11 a.m. (CET) in English.
Online registration:
www.eplan.de/webcast-harness
05
NEW BUSINESS UNIT
An interdisciplinary team is building a
new business unit for Eplan ePULSE
near Düsseldorf and Cologne. Forty
employees from various departments
are currently working on new concepts
for applications that will eventually
complement familiar Eplan Platform
products. “We want to remain versa-
tile and optimise all products related
to Eplan ePULSE on an ongoing basis.
We monitor the market, asking cus-
tomers and partners how they envision
cutting-edge engineering,” explains
Markus Jaensch, Process Owner Cloud
Business at Eplan in Langenfeld, Ger-
many. “At the Hannover Messe 2019,
for example, visitors to our stand will
have the opportunity to discuss ideas
and possibilities with us for the engi-
neering of the future.”
More information at­
www.epulse.cloud
06 Focus
Fokus

Prestigious
manufacturers

THE ART present their

newest innovations
at the Hannover
Messe, one of
the world’s
biggest trade
shows for consumer
electronics.
OF

s4e # 01.2019
 07

CHA N GE
Chances

Rapid change and digital advancement

are major phenomena of today’s world. But
companies have always had to deal with
transformations, since such processes are
necessary for staying abreast of the com-
petition. The most important aspect of go-
ing through them is to remain open to new
things and adapt to the environment.
T E XT SONJA KOESLING
08 Focus

C ompany life cycles

are getting progres-
sively shorter, as we
can see from stock
market indices. Just
fourteen of the orig-
inal thirty founding
members of the DAX, Germany’s blue chip
stock market index, have remained on the
list since 1988. A look at the Fortune G ­ lobal
Change means
accepting evolu-
500 also presents a picture of displacement: tion. As technology
more than half of the companies that made advances, people
it onto the listing of firms with the highest change with it.
worldwide revenues are no longer in busi-
ness. Some of them have filed for bankrupt-
cy, some were acquired by others, and some
simply gave up because they could no longer
keep up with the market dynamics of their
industry.
“Companies have always been confront-
ed with change,” says Stephan ­Stockhausen,
the founder of Manufaktur für Wachstum, a
business consulting and coaching agency
based in Bochum, Germany. “Yet the speed
and unpredictability of change today is enor-
mous, and much more radical than it was
twenty years ago.” For example, after Apple
announced the iPhone, Nokia assumed it
didn’t have anything to worry about since it STEPHAN STOCKHAUSEN
had more than a year’s market advantage
when the iPhone finally launched in 2007. is a systemic coach with a focus on collaboration coaching for
Indeed, Steve Ballmer, who was still the CEO leadership coalitions and on change design thinking.
of Microsoft at the time – the company that
would later buy out Nokia – publically derid-
ed the competitive chances of the iPhone
and predicted it wouldn’t sell well at all. Now
Apple dominates the smartphone market,
together with Samsung and Huawei, and
Nokia quickly sank into insignificance;
­Microsoft’s takeover of the company didn’t

We’re curious,
change a thing.

Dynamic and Disruptive

Transitions such as from mobile devices

to smartphones, from vacuum tubes to
semiconductors, and from technical draw- we try,
fall down,
ings to computer-aided design (CAD) are
disruptive and technologically driven. Yet
these technological advances wouldn’t
have been felt so drastically in the market

get back up
if there hadn’t been a parallel change in
another key driver: people.
People’s values, learning behaviour,
interactions and thoughts about status

and try again.

have changed. Younger generations are
much quicker to adapt to new develop-
ments and adjust their habits accordingly
than their predecessors were. As a >

s4e # 01.2019
09
10
New Structures
Kurt Lewin’s three-phase model is a model for social change.­
In Lewin’s model, changes take place in phases that gradually
change people’s attitudes towards a new system.
FREEZE
The final phase serves to consol-
idate the group’s acclimatisation
to the change. The new process
must fit seamlessly and be a very
natural part of things. This is
ensured through continuous mon-
itoring after the introduction phase
to verify that the process is work-
ing and being maintained.
> result, customer behaviours and prefer-
ences are changing abruptly and often,
requiring companies to develop a new
adaptability. For many of these companies,
change management is the solution.
Change management is how a German
automobile group managed to break out from
its silo mentality and redefine its process
chains. This put the company back on
equal footing with its competitors in the
field of electronics. At a Westphalian Ger-
man machinery manufacturer, the depar-
ture from dusty hierarchical thinking awak-
ened a fresh spirit of innovation. The
company, replaced its entire second level
of management with employees from its
own ranks. Since the change, all decisions
have been taken by those most affected
by them. This created an important lifeline
for production operations within a year,
which has kept the order books full ever
since. Alexander Bürkle also honed its
focus as a company. Clever change man-
agement transformed this Baden-Württem-
Focus
CHANGE
This is the transition to the new
level. The introduction of new
group standards is reinforced by
the direct intervention of those
responsible and strengthened
through training. This process is
closely monitored.
berg-based company from an electronics
wholesaler to a technology services pro-
vider advising its clients on all aspects of
smart buildings and smart industries.
Success stories such as these demon-
strate that transformations are possible both
in medium-sized enterprises and large cor-
porations. But why do experts estimate that
70 per cent of all change projects end in
failure? As Stockhausen explains, “If a com-
pany wants to be able to view new frame-
work conditions and challenges as a chance
instead of a threat, the ability to change must
become part of the company’s DNA and
embed itself into the corporate culture.” In
other words, managing change isn’t enough.
The Willingness to
Change
Change is about deliberating, taking action
and stabilising the results. The psychologist
Kurt Lewin describes this transformation as
s4e # 01.2019
UNFREEZE
Preparing for change. In this
phase, plans are communicated,
those affected by the changes
are included in discussions, sup-
port is developed and a period
of time is generally set to prepare
for the changes.
a three-phase process of change. His mod-
el is based on the assumption that in every
organisation, there are forces that drive
change and forces that prevent it. Normally,
both sides balance each other out to create
an equilibrium.
To bring about change, this equilibrium
must be disturbed by strengthening the for-
ces driving change and reducing those
blocking it. The goal is to create a willing-
ness to change. “There must be a pull that
captures the imagination of employees so
that they want to participate,” Stockhausen
says. This can only succeed when the com-
mon vision is clear to workers and they con-
sciously grapple with the value they bring
to the vision. This is how significance is cre-
ated: How does your work influence others?
What meaning does your work have for cus-
tomers and co-workers? Can your work con-
tribute something to the company’s success,
to society or world affairs? According to
researchers at the University of Innsbruck,
the experience of feeling significant goes
 11

hand in hand with feelings of autonomy and

How does
responsibility. These in turn bring a greater
sense of purpose to one’s career.
Beyond this, it’s important that employ-
ees devote themselves to substantive top-

your work
ics. “Many companies make the mistake of
leading off with pseudo-topics and discuss-
ing central challenges under the pretext of
secret diplomacy,” Stockhausen says. Both
top-down and bottom-up approaches have

influence
drawbacks for change processes. If the man-
agement team plans a transformation with-
out actively involving its employees, it is more
likely to encounter “resistance from below”
during implementation and to set excessive-

others?
ly lofty expectations. If only the employees
at the lowest levels of the hierarchy are
involved, the potential for change may not
be fully exploited because they lack com-
prehensive knowledge of the company. The
best approach is to take the middle road,
the “both directions” principle: a mixture of
top-down and bottom-up approaches.

What
Stimulating Curiosity

The second phase of the change process

is where the actual changes take place. This
is where new behaviours are practised. “As

meaning
a child, you learn to walk, to swim, to paint,”
Stockhausen says. “These are all things we
cannot do at first. But we’re curious; we try
them, fall down, get back up and try them

does
again. We perceive failure as a very normal
thing.” This natural gift of perception ends
when we first go to school, where “mistakes
are eliminated with a red pen and perfor-
mance is measured against an ideal,” as

your work
Stockhausen explains. Companies need to
find their way back to an environment in which
failure is allowed and experimentation is wel-
come: “Managers can support this by encour-
aging the active drivers of the change pro-

have for
cess and by transparently communicating
both advancements and interim findings,”
Stockhausen says. Once the new state of
affairs has been achieved, phase three

customers
begins: freezing the results. It’s important
to maintain this new state and not fall back
into old behaviour patterns. This is the only
way a company can remain open to new
things and – like a chameleon – react to the

and co-
influences of its environment. And these
influences are a certainty, because nothing
is as constant as change. —

workers?
12
Change-Management
Change Is an
(In)sensitive Issue
T
he wheels of change
are turning ever fast-
er in the business
world and running
over many with con-
siderable force. Is this
ride guaranteed to
make you dizzy? Change is on everyone’s
lips. Continuous change represents inno-
vation, competiti­veness, process optimi-
sation, increasing efficiency, personal devel-
opment, flexibility and more. “Change often
becomes an end in itself,” says author and
professor Dr Nina Leffers, who teaches
international business management at the
OTH Regensburg, a polytechnic universi-
ty in eastern Bavaria. “It turns into a phan-
tom that everyone talks about and that
haunts organisations, terrifying employees
instead of giving them direction. This makes
the normal experience of change projects
into a craziness that is overwhelming and
stressful – and that doesn’t bring about any
useful changes.” Only those who carefully
Focus
The Not-To-Do-List
What’s the secret to successful
change? Unfortunately there is
no cookie-cutter solution, but
some things should be avoided at
all costs. Dr Nina Leffers
offers a “Not-To-Do List” in her
book, Der ganz normale
Change-Wahnsinn (The Completely
Normal Change Insanity – German
only).“
Abstract key figures and buzzword
bingo instead of tangible goals
Superlatives instead
of realism
prepare for change and proceed sensitive-
Top-down declarations instead
ly can let chances grow from change. of active participation
The foundation of successful change is
a common vision, the meaning and signif-
Indecisiveness instead of clear
icance of which everyone must understand. structures and resolve
Furthermore, the goals the company is striv-
ing for must be specific and the results to
Blind action instead of
be achieved must be clearly communicat- meaningful orientation
ed. Change depends on good ideas. Then
again, “innovations can only be success-
Ignoring emotions instead of
ful when they’re supported and implement- taking objections seriously
ed by the entire team,” Leffers explains.
That’s why it is important to have a struc-
Thwarting instead
ture for implementation and to keep the of empowering
processes as simple as possible. “Good
ideas fizzle out if the project isn’t clearly
Self-interest and silo mentality in-
managed,” says Leffers, “so change actors stead of open exchange of ideas
should ask the hard questions about which
project management tools are truly impor-
Test balloons instead of
tant and which are superfluous.” There is actual implementation
one tool that should never be underappre-
ciated, however: open and ongoing com-
Excessive control instead
munication. — of process assurance
s4e # 01.2019
 13

POWERING
CHANGE

35%
REORGANISATION &
RESTRUCTURING

16%
GROWTH INITIATIVES

11%
COST REDUCTION

11%
DIGITISATION &
INNOVATION

10%
CHANGES IN BUSINESS
STRATEGY

Source: Capgemini
14 Focus

EFFICIENT ENGINEERING IS WHEN CHANGE BECOMES A CHANCE.

s4e # 01.2019
 15

Interview

Change is the only path to pro-

gress. In conversation with s4e,
Chief Executive Officer of Eplan
and Cideon S­ ebastian Seitz
explains what change means to his
company and why the industry is
ready for new business models.

SEBASTIAN SEITZ

is the CEO of Eplan and Cideon. He views change as a
chance – ­especially for companies seeking to optimise an important topic at Eplan?
their business processes.
Why has change management always been
When companies decide to adopt our software, management
usually has a clear goal in mind: to work in a more efficient and
streamlined manner. Implementing this plan can mean scaling
back project planning times, shortening production times, or
digitising and automating processes, for example. But simply
adopting software is not enough: not only must the software
usage be harmonious with upstream and downstream steps, but
the overall processes must also be in sync. People usually find it
easier to change familiar ways of working if they can understand
why they should.

Where does Eplan come in?

For one thing, our experienced, expert consulting can help

create coherent overall processes. Moreover, it is important that
employees are not only able to operate the software, but to really
“use” it and feel secure working with it. We support our customers
with appropriate training courses to facilitate the transition and
ensure ongoing success.

Is Eplan undergoing its own change

process?

Like every company that wants to remain successful in the

marketplace, we are looking to continue to optimise our processes
and discover new fields of business. We’re also being driven by
digitisation, just as many other companies are. Eplan is making
great progress in this area, and parts of our organisation have
already been well positioned. Now we want to redouble our efforts:
over the next five years, we will be digitising our business >
16 Focus

> processes as much as we can and launching new digital

business processes as well. This will allow us to become even faster
and more proactive in how we respond to the preferences and
requirements of our customers.

How will you go about it?

Currently in development is our cloud-based solution Eplan ePULSE,

which will add more applications and services to our popular Eplan
Platform in response to the growing demands from our customers.
As part of this development, we have restructured ourselves and set
up a new unit, which interacts in a matrix organisation to provide fresh
ideas. We are taking a risk with this experiment: the entire team is
Good to Know
prepared for some ideas to never see the light of day. Our shared
vision is to build a comprehensive and innovative ecosystem of auto-
mation projects that offers users added value in services and inter-
actions.

Several well-known companies in the

industry have started out similarly and
ended up permanently changing many
markets with their platforms. How does
Eplan compare?
We have been actively working on cloud-based models for some
time now. For example, Eplan Data Portal already reaches more than
250,000 users online, connecting them to data from component man- The Network Effect
ufacturers, and we are adding new users every day. This increase in in Action
numbers is important because as more people use the portal, more
manufacturers are drawn to making their device and component data
accessible. And the more manufacturers that publish their data via When the utility of a product increas-
the portal, the more attractive it becomes to users, encouraging them es with the number of users, we call
to offer feedback and evaluate products. Everyone benefits. that a positive network effect. Here
are two impressive examples from
Why is now the time to add platform the B2C arena. It took Spotify four
economics to the Eplan environment? years to reach ten million premium
users. By 2017, the Swedish start-up
The industry has made an about-face on the subject of digitisation: had accomplished the same thing in
today, only 29 per cent of all German industrial companies think that six months, announcing in the spring
digitisation projects are unnecessary, as opposed to half of those that it was pleased to welcome user
companies in 2016. According to the latest Digital Economic Index number fifty million. Today, just about
from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 67 per two years later, Spotify is close to
cent of organisations working in mechanical engineering are incor- the hundred million mark. Amazon,
porating digitisation points into their corporate strategy. As a software the long-standing undisputed leader
provider, we must always be a few steps ahead of our customers: in e-commerce, owes the steady
when embarking on their personal transformation process, they want expansion of its dominant position to
access to the appropriate solutions without waiting for us to catch a positive network effect. The Ama-
up. We seek to provide continuity in their customer experience, along zon Prime service has been pur-
with the Eplan quality they trust. chased by more than a hundred mil-
lion customers worldwide, who
What makes the cloud so attractive to spend more on average than non-
software users? Prime customers. Since the number
of Prime subscribers is growing,
Companies using cloud products no longer have to worry about more and more vendors want to
in-house software installation and maintenance. This is more cost-­ present their merchandise to this tar-
effective, more convenient and much more secure than an outdated get group. This increases the num-
data centre. A software solution is always up to date, and all users ber of products that qualify for Prime.
have the latest version. Naturally, this strengthens cooperation: the And – you guessed it – that makes
cloud is ideal for collaborating on shared files across companies and Prime more attractive to customers
locations. This is why the feedback on our new solution, Eplan eVIEW, and boosts its user numbers.
has been so positive. Multiple users can finally access, view and
make comments on the same automation project. —

s4e # 01.2019
 17

Eplan ePULSE

New Centrepiece
With its new cloud business, Eplan isn’t just focusing on changes within
the company, but also in the market: Eplan ePULSE is set to become the
open, cloud-based system of interdisciplinary and cross-interface engi-
neering around the world. It’s an ambitious plan, built on a solid founda-
tion. Have a look at what the cloud interface can do today and what it
will be able to deliver very soon.

Everyone knows that Eplan offers applica-

tions in the cloud such as Eplan Data ­Portal
and Eplan eVIEW. The company is contin-
uing these advances with Eplan ePULSE, a
new system that forms the basis for a com-
plete network of cloud-based solutions bring-
ing together data and projects, disciplines
and engineers worldwide. With just an inter-
net browser, users get free access to appli-
cations that expand the Eplan Platform prod-
uct world with additional functionality along
the data-based value chain. The Eplan
ePULSE system is open to a variety of data
formats and interfaces to systems from oth-
er providers.
Continued Growth
Eplan’s current application portfolio has
sounded the starting gun: “Our goal is to
expand Eplan ePULSE into a worldwide
engineering network and offer ongoing new
functionalities with a high degree of added
value,” says Eplan Head of Cloud Business
Hauke Niehus. “Right now our development
teams are working on a variety of ideas.”
Niehus sees a decisive advantage in the
cloud environment; its great flexibility allows
interdisciplinary teams to quickly react to
user feedback. “This makes it possible for
us to optimise solutions, even at short notice.”
In the future, applications offered in Eplan
ePULSE won’t just be limited to those from
the Eplan family of products: “We’re current-
ly working with our customers and industry
partners on this,” reports Hauke Niehus. —
SOLUTIONS AT A GLANCE
Eplan ePULSE users have or will soon have access
to these cloud services:
EPLAN eVIEW
With Eplan eVIEW, engineering projects
generated in Eplan Platform will be direct-
ly accessible in the cloud. This means that
project data can be viewed at any time
from anywhere. A redlining function lets
employees in maintenance or on the shop
floor add their suggestions for changes
into the schematics. Engineering has an
overview of all the comments, can edit
them and has control over the validity of
the final project data. Clearly defined
access rights also make it possible for
project partners to securely access all
data across departments and even across
companies.
EPLAN COGINEER
Generating schematics from a template
library with just a few clicks is soon pos-
sible directly in a browser, thanks to the
cloud version of Eplan Cogineer in Eplan
ePULSE. Users can generate it directly
into their existing Eplan Platform , Version
2.8. The new Eplan Cogineer Advanced
version offers additional functionality, with
configuration variables and value sets that
can be imported as well as subfunctions
that can be instantiated, making model
creation much easier. Those who prefer
the traditional software can continue to use
the on-premise version of Eplan Cogineer.
EPLAN DATA PORTAL
Device and component data from a con-
stantly growing network of manufacturers,
all in one application – this is Eplan Data
Portal. Users can access the data direct-
ly in their browser. They can also rate the
quality of the data within the application,
giving manufacturers valuable feedback
from the community. This helps users to
benefit from continually increasing data
volumes at a reliable quality level that is
always on the rise.
More information at­
www.epulse.cloud
18 Trends

WHERE
HAVE ALL
THE PROS
GONE?
s4e # 01.2019
 19

Business Processes

Full order books, increasing com-

plexity, a job market swept clean:
the switchgear engineering indus-
try has been particularly hard hit by
a lack of skilled personnel. Work-
ing together, Eplan and Rittal high-
light the potential that an integrated
­value chain can bring.

TEXT DR. JÖRG LANTZSCH/HANS-ROBERT KOCH/

ANNIKA PELLMANN

T
An empty production facility
isn’t uncommon these days, with
skilled staff harder to come by.
Companies need solutions that
keep processes flowing smoothly
all the same.
he dearth of qualified
workers has been
affecting companies in
various sectors for
years – and the situa-
tion shows no signs of
improving any time
soon. Control cabinet and switchgear man-
ufacturing companies in particular are often
located in highly industrialised areas close
to their customers, who belong to indus-
tries with high personnel requirements
themselves. The effects of this shortage of
skilled workers are therefore especially
noticeable in this arena. “Since many orders
for control cabinets and switchgear sys-
tems are for very small batch sizes and >
20 Trends

> must comply with customers’ individu-

alised specifications – often meaning a
one-off production – qualified employees
are an absolute must-have,” says Gener-
al Manager Nicholas Visser-Plenge, at
Plenge GmbH in Oelde, Germany.
This family-owned company of some
seventy employees works on projects in
electrical engineering and control systems
engineering. In order to meet its need for
specialised personnel, Plenge trains its
workers above capacity, “because well- The man at the machine:
trained, qualified employees are difficult Jerome Gröning, a Plenge
to find,” explains Visser-Plenge. Even find- employee, introduced the
ing suitable apprentices is becoming Perforex to the company.
increasingly difficult, despite the compa-
ny’s presence at many job and training
fairs, the attractive career opportunities it
offers, and its pleasant working environ-
ment.

Manual Tasks Despite

Increasing Complexity

Qualified specialists are needed more

urgently than ever. The increasing com-
plexity of control technology and its com-
ponents, the desires among customers for
bespoke solutions, the national and inter-
national standards that must be met, the
last-minute changes and ever-tighter deliv-
ery deadlines are imposing enormous cost
pressures on control cabinet engineering
companies. At the same time, another prob-
lem is exacerbating the personnel short-
age: there are many tasks in company NICOLAS VISSER-PLENGE
workshops that are still completed manu-
ally. “It’s inefficient for a trained electrical General Manager at Plenge GmbH in Oelde, Germany
engineer to have to cut cable ducts and
mounting rails to size and attach them to
a mounting panel,” Visser-Plenge says.
Control Cabinet Manufacturing 4.0, a study

It’s inefficient for a

by the Institute for Control Engineering of
Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units
(ISW) at the University of Stuttgart, has
found that about half the time required for
control cabinet manufacturing is needed
for wiring alone. This ties up a large amount
of human-resource capacity.
trained electrical
When skilled personnel are lacking,
automating production steps can help.
“What’s crucial here is a digital database
engineer to have to
cut mounting rails to
that is continually enhanced during the
entire planning phase and that remains
available end-to-end during the subse-

size and attach them

quent steps of the process,” says Thomas
Weichsel, Eplan Product Manager and
Team Leader for Value Chain Software

to a mounting panel.
Solutions. On this foundation, Eplan Pro
Panel can be used to create a digital pro-
totype of the fully assembled control >

s4e # 01.2019
 21

LCA GROUP, GREAT BRITAIN

2018 was an exciting year for LCA Group, a

Welsh electrical engineering company with
more than 35 years of business experience.
Early last year, LCA opened a brand new pro-
duction facility in Hawarden Industrial Park,
approximately 30 kilometres south of Liver-
pool.

Integrated automation of the value chain was

a major focus. “Right from the start, we were
aiming to significantly improve our manufac-
turing capacities and the efficiency of our pro-
cesses,” says Alan Sheppard, Managing
Director at LCA.

To achieve this, the company relied on joint

solutions from Rittal and Eplan: “Using our
integrated value chain, we were able to show
LCA how to fully automate their processes,
from engineering to production planning to
manufacturing,” reports Heath Grant, Area
Sales Manager at Rittal.

LCA Group was impressed: “After taking a

look at Rittal’s entire range of solutions, we
incorporated various tools and systems into
our processes,” says Sheppard. In the end,
LCA was the first company in Great Britain to
invest in a Rittal Perforex LC 3015 3D laser
machining centre.

The upstream steps in LCA’s value chain were

taken into consideration as well. “We believe
the key to quality and efficient manufacturing
starts with the design process,” affirms
­Sheppard. “Using the latest 3D modelling
techniques, we ensure the design meets our
customers’ needs before we begin to build
or manufacture.” This is why LCA Group works
with Eplan Pro Panel in engineering. “It was
the obvious choice, since we had already
invested in Rittal system technology, and Eplan
software is perfectly in sync with that.”
22 Trends

> cabinet. “For one, it can serve as the

basis for calculating the wiring routing
paths,” Weichsel continues. “The wire
lengths are then also calculated automat-
ically. With a solution like Rittal Wire ­Terminal
WT, wire processing is then fully automat-
ed.” Labour-intensive wiring by hand can
also be optimised after this basis has been
created: Eplan Smart Wiring provides step-
by-step support for employees – for
instance via a tablet computer directly at
their workstations. The placement of each
individual wire is displayed exactly. Pro-
gress on each step of the wiring is contin-
uously logged and displayed using a red,
yellow or green light. This means that even
after a change in shifts, the next person
can get started exactly where the last work-
er left off.
Another typical candidate for automa-
tion is the processing of flat parts for a
control cabinet. NC-supported machining
centres like those from the Perforex series
by Rittal Automation Systems have been
specially developed for these tasks in con-
trol cabinet manufacturing. Control cabi-
nets are adapted to each individual set of
requirements via drilling, milling, laser cut- Always sync
ting and threading.
Plenge invested in one of these machin- Last-minute changes to schematics made in Eplan Pro Panel are
ing centres in 2018, the Perforex Laser automatically updated in Eplan Smart Wiring for further proces-
Center LC, and enjoyed a significant sing. This means that schematics are always up to date without any
increase in efficiency for mechanical pro- extra work.
cessing. Of the two employees who were
previously engaged for this purpose, one
can now take on a different set of tasks in
the workshop. “One of the prerequisites
for all of this to work smoothly is the con-
tinuousness of the data management, from
preplanning in electrical engineering
through to production planning and man-
ufacturing, and even on to the ERP sys-
tem,” Visser-Plenge says.
As a rule, it isn’t enough to look at just
one single link in the value chain to improve
the overall efficiency of manufacturing pro-
cesses. As Weichsel emphasises: “Right
now the greatest potential for increasing
process efficiency is primarily in improv-
ing cooperation between product devel-
opment and product production. This ini-
tially requires end-to-end digitisation along
the process chain. Standardising data and
interfaces then ensures data consistency
in all the process steps and along the entire
value chain. These are the requirements
for automation and for maximum process
efficiency.” —

s4e # 01.2019

THE INTEGRATED VALUE
CHAIN FROM EPLAN AND RITTAL
Eplan and Rittal present optimally coordinated solu-
tions of software, system technology, automation
technologies and digital assistance systems to ful-
ly automate manufacturing processes. Here are some
examples.
Foundation:
An Integrated Process
The key to automation is a uniform database. This is created in the
planning phase: digital data is defined and continuously enhanced
from engineering in Eplan Electric P8 through the mechanical con-
trol cabinet layout with the Rittal RICS system configurator and the
3D layout planning of the equipment in Eplan Pro Panel, continu-
ing through to production planning. The software solutions from
Eplan provide additional support, for instance with the migration
from Rittal TS 8 mounting layouts to the new Rittal VX25 large enclo-
sure system.
Automated Wire Processing
Wire processing can be fully automated based on the elec-
tromechanical design of the control cabinet: Eplan Pro Panel
determines the optimal routing paths for the wires and calcu-
lates the required lengths. This data is seamlessly transferred
to the wire processing system: the new Rittal Wire Terminal WT
machines process the various wires in multiple cross-sections
completely automatically. The WT machines can then produce
the wires in a predefined sequence. The Rittal Wire Terminal
machines also support manual wiring with the Eplan Smart
­Wiring digital assistance system.
Consulting
Digitising and optimising the value creation chain in its entirety can
be challenging. This is why Eplan and Rittal offer individualised
consulting for how best to exploit the potential found in engineering
processes, manufacturing processes and integration processes.
Not only do the consultants provide instruction on the necessary
methodology, but they also contribute their years of experience in
process optimisation.
23
XIANGYUN MONITORING
SOFTWARE, CHINA
The city of Changzhou is located in eastern
China, about a two-hour drive from Shang-
hai. Though less known in the West, this
metropolis on the banks of Lake Tai boasts
more than four million inhabitants and over
three thousand years of history. Changzhou
has a lot to offer at the industrial level as
well: the many companies based here work
in tool design and construction, machine
engineering, agricultural machinery, textiles
and more.
One such company is Changzhou Leheng
Automation Ltd., a subsidiary of Changzhou
Xiangyun Monitoring Software. Founded in
2006, the group specialises in the develop-
ment, sales and service of control and switch-
gear systems in the textile sector. The com-
panies rely on solutions from Eplan and
Rittal to automate their value creation pro-
cesses.
A number of Rittal solutions are already being
used in the manufacture of control and switch-
gear systems. The Secarex AC 18 cutting
centre, for example, automatically cuts wir-
ing ducts and support rails to the right length.
Rittal Perforex handles the mechanical pro-
cessing of control and switchgear systems,
and Rittal mobile assembly tables simplify
the manual labour of mounting panels and
casings.
Soon the company's entire value chain will
be automated, starting with engineering. The
IT environments are in the process of incor-
porating Eplan Electric P8 for schematic cre-
ation and Eplan Pro Panel for electrical con-
trol cabinet engineering and switchgear
engineering in 3D. "Our goals are to keep
growing, to increase our output and to reach
more customers with quality products and
services", says Changzhou Leheng, Gener-
al Manager Hao Jiang. "It is essential that
we focus more on electrical control systems
and electronic switchgear systems going
forward. We are certain that collaborating
with Eplan will help us master this challenge
and create win-win situations together.
24 Trends

Management

A digitisation strategy is one of the supreme disciplines

of corporate management 4.0. An overview of the current
state of knowledge.
TE X T U LRICH KLÄSEN ER

Food for
Who Will Be Handling It?

The management consulting firm Horváth & Partners surveyed

210 decision-makers at large corporations about who is respon-
sible for digitisation (the “Digital Value 2018” study). In 2016,
37 per cent of CEOs were still in charge of this issue. In 2018,
on the other hand, digitisation was being handled by 35 per
cent of CIOs (IT directors), 19 per cent of CSOs (chief strate-
gists), 11 per cent of CDOs (digital officers) and just 8 per cent
CEOs. More results:

What Decision-Makers Expect from Digitisation

Increased revenues 60%

Productivity gains 55%
Cost reductions 53% a b c d e

New information
50%
Service optimisation
49% Percentage of Companies Improving Mainte-
nance and Product Quality through Digitisation
New sales and distribution channels 43%
New products and improved customer-
specific product offerings 30% a Better satisfaction of customer needs 56%
b Faster delivery times 53%
New business models 29% c Quicker production times 52%
d Better product maintenance availability 45%
Automated decisions 27% e More individualised and customer-specific products 44%

s4e # 01.2019
 25

Thought
“Culture First”
The Change Management Study 2017 by Capgemini Consult-
ing starts with one premise: “The more firmly the digital culture
is anchored in the company, the more successful the digitisa-
tion.” The study identifies the “key features” of digital culture:
customer focus, digital technologies and digitalised processes,
entrepreneurship, agility, autonomous working conditions, dig-
ital leadership, collaboration, learning and innovation. Addition-
al sufficient conditions are openness, a willingness to learn, an
eagerness to accept change, and diversity. Further results:
Digitisation Index
for SMEs 2018
“Digitisation is a part of business strategy in 47 per cent of indus-
trial companies, an increase of four percentage points com-
pared to 2017 [...] 39 per cent of small and medium-sized indus-
trial enterprises are already achieving digital added value.” This
is one of the conclusions from the Digitisation Index for SMEs
2018, a benchmark study carried out by techconsult on behalf
of Deutsche Telekom. Further results:

What Effects Do Digital Measures

Have on Industrial Companies?

1 The stronger the digital culture, the more finan-

cially successful the company and the more s
the employees
­ atisfied

88% 82% 79%

2 The biggest roadblocks to digital culture change:

lack of communication with employees, silo
­mentality and inadequate handling of employees’
concerns
88% of companies improve the quality of internal process-
es by networking their production facilities.
82% of companies with mobile access to their business

3
Front runners of digitisation pay more attention to applications achieve more efficient internal processes.
employees than to technology; this includes a
­culture of trust, allowances for mistakes, an empha- 79% of the companies increase their IT availability and
sis on the value of knowledge, and a stronger focus performance with cloud solutions.
on employees’ wants and needs
26 Trends

DIETER ZETSCHE

Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG

Today´s global Problem areas in digitising products for machine

competition is
and plant engineering (software development, IT
hardware, automation technology)

about winning in 79%

the digital world
Personnel availability

Know-how/technology transfer
58%
as well as in the Training/advanced training
33%
real world. IT research in the industrial environment
19%

Germany’s Innovation Drivers

“Even in the digital age, mechanical engineering companies

remain Germany’s main driving force in innovation. The indus-
try is more technologically advanced than any other,” reports
the Traveling to Digital Worlds trend study, conducted by Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) and Bitkom Research in 2018.

IT and Automation 2018

Digitised products and product-related services in machine Machine and plant engineering
engineering are the focus of the VDMA IT and Automation Report
2018. One of the study’s questions asked about the progress
expected by 2021 on measures to develop and/or expand impor-
tant skills for developing digitised products and product-relat-
ed services. Industry
Other Industry

Cooperation with IT/software companies:

38% to a moderate degree

22% to a high degree
30% to a lesser degree

a b c d e f
Outsourcing software development to service providers:

50% to a moderate degree

14% to a high degree
26% to a lesser degree
Advanced training as IT/software specialists:
30% to a moderate degree
8% to a high degree
42% to a lesser degree
a Digitisation embedded in corporate strategy 82%–76%
b Encouraging employees’ digital expertise 80%–77%
c Changes in existing products and services
due to digitisation 61%–56%
d Use of robotics 37%–23%
e Use of artificial intelligence 22%–7%
f Recruiting via digital systems 35%–22%

s4e # 01.2019
 27

PEOPLE IN THE ­DIGITAL

REVOLUTION

ULRICH SENDLER

is a journalist, author, speaker and moderator on topics such as

Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence and information technology. He
decodes state-of-the-art technology for those who are unfamiliar
with it. He finds that digitisation is pushing the industrial division of
labour and specialisation to its limits.

F
or many, digitisation has
been an issue of tech-
nology. This is no longer
true. When technology
gets so close to us that
it’s sometimes no longer
apparent where the per-
son ends and the machine begins, it’s high
time for everyone to start dealing with how
we want to shape it.
Many in the industry have understood
that digitisation directly affects them. Their
products are becoming networked, some-
times autonomously functioning systems
that can serve as the basis for innovative
services such as industrial apps. The path
to achieving these involves questioning
proprietary business models and becom-
ing willing to pursue completely new ways
of thinking. The number of SMEs taking
this path in Germany and worldwide, includ-
ing the US and China, is growing faster
than expected.
On the threshold of the Internet of Things,
however, we can decide whether we want
to follow the style prescribed by Silicon
Valley or hold on to our European ethics.
A data ownership system would be one of
the prerequisites to ensure that the busi-
ness of data doesn’t become a business
of selling people out.
The history of humanity is also a histo-
ry of technical evolution. In the end peo-
ple may be doing little human work in the
not too distant future, or even none at all,
to earn the bare necessities of life. Yet we
lack the appropriate system of necessary
social safeguards.
There is much to do. We would do well to
look back at humanity’s great upheavals in
the agricultural and industrial revolutions,
and to improve our understanding of origins
and history, of the opportunities and risks of
the latest digital networking technology. –
Reading Tip: Ulrich Sendler,
Das Gespinst der Digitalisie-
rung. Menschheit im Umbruch –
auf dem Weg zu einer neuen Welt-
anschauung (The Web of
Digitisation. People in Uphea-
val – On the Path to a New
Worldview – German only),
Springer Verlag, 298 Sites
28 Trends

Cloud

To the Future
SAP ERP is being used worldwide for the
­integrated administration of CAD data in machine
and plant engineering, but the IT landscape is
transforming. Cideon Head of Software Develop-
ment Rolf Lisse finds that all trends point to the
cloud. A trip to the future – without a flux capacitor.

INTERVIEW GREGOR KARASINSKY

s4e # 01.2019

Mr Lisse, you’ve been
dealing with product data
management in SAP since
the mid 1990s. What does the
current situation look like?
The traditional SAP ERP – SAP’s Enterprise
Resource Planning system – plays a key
role today as the “single source of truth”
for CAD data management. This is usually
the best solution: product manufacturers
are already using SAP ERP across the
board, so they don’t need an additional
intermediary system to manage CAD data.
Can you provide an example
of this?
In principle, SAP users need to create a
central repository for locally created prod-
uct data. By integrating their CAD into SAP
and linking commercial and technical pro-
cesses, companies can manage and con-
trol all their engineering data and docu-
ments throughout the entire product life
cycle. This forms the foundation for stra-
tegic and integrated PLM. Right now our
customers manage terabytes of CAD data
in SAP through direct integration and then
make this available to the respective users
through intelligent content and cache serv-
er architectures.
Let’s risk a look to the
future: How will this work
going forward?
The fundamental principles won’t change
at all. However, cloud environments such
as SAP S/4HANA will undoubtedly be the
future standard in an ERP context. This
means we need to find new solutions for
engineering and for dealing with CAD data,
at least for those scenarios that catch on
in the market.
How will such scenarios play
out?
I see two basic possibilities that product
manufacturers will be forced to deal with
over either the short term or the long term.
The first possibility is that as the ERP sys-
tem moves into the cloud, the CAD solu-
tions will stay on-premise, meaning with-
out a connection to the cloud. Traditional
engineering systems like the ones we are
29
familiar with today must therefore be inte-
grated into the cloud ERP world. A new
generation of CAD interfaces will have to
be developed that can hold their own as
far as latency times and bandwidth, and
also win user acceptance. The second
possibility is that both the CAD solutions
and the ERP system become available in
the cloud. Cloud-based CAD applications
are increasingly becoming viable alterna-
tives at the moment, so it makes sense to
link these ERP systems with cloud envi-
ronments such as SAP S/4HANA.
So the cloud will definitely
play an important role in the
mechanical engineering of
the future?
It already does. Cloud-based CAD systems
already have the tools for real-time colla­
borative engineering: a design engineer
drills a hole through a panel and her
colleague working on the other side of the
world sees it just a few milliseconds later in
his browser-based CAD system. The ad­
vantages are obvious, with special hard­
ware no longer needed and administrative
costs coming down.
­ hich MCAD-type software
W
is currently available to
realise such cloud-to-cloud
solutions in the future? ROLF LISSE
One promising solution is the cloud-based Cideon Head of Software Development Rolf Lisse
design tool Onshape. Cideon is currently provides insights into Cideon Cloud CAD
working closely with the manufacturer to Integration.
develop a seamless integration of Onshape
into SAP S/4HANA: the Cideon Cloud CAD
Integration.
So to sum it up, Cideon is
increasingly focusing on
cloud-to-cloud solutions for
SAP integration?
Correct. I think that cloud-to-cloud connec-
tions will be an important building block for
forward-looking engineering. But that’s just
one building block – of course traditional
CAD programs must also be compatible
with SAP S/4HANA. We’re making progress
on both integration scenarios. I’m excited
to see where this journey will lead us. —
30 Trends

Comprehensive Process Consulting

From Trade Show

to Workflow

s4e # 01.2019
 31

Visitors to the exhibition stand

at SPS Nuremberg and Hannover
Messe experience the change
process first-hand, analysing
their companies’ objectives and
sketching out their current
situation with on-site consul­
tants.

Are trade shows all

about small talk and
business cards?
Not at all! At Eplan
and C ­ ideon’s stand,
­attendees and con-
sultants take a look at
­process ­landscapes.
T E X T A N N I K A P E L L M A NN AND
BIRGIT HAGELSCHUER
32 Trends

The Structure Makes the Process

C hecking out trends,

maintaining contacts,
comparing providers:
trade fairs like the
Hannover Messe and
Nuremberg’s SPS
remain a valuable
source of professional inspiration for inquis-
itive, enterprising and sociable attendees,
even in the age of livestreams, webcasts
and social networks.
Visitors who have had their fill of small Data fuelling digital processes
talk can get right down to business with
Eplan and Cideon and help their compa-
nies expedite the digital change process.
Free live check-ups at the SPS stand in
November 2018 gave attendees a closer ERP/PDM
look at the entire process landscape of their
companies for the first time – going much
further than software solutions. “In a nut- Eplan
shell, we’re not just talking about digitisa- Data Portal Mechanical
Device Data Engineering
tion,” says Sebastian Seitz, Chief Execu-
tive Officer of Eplan and Cideon. “We’re
putting it into practice.” Eplan Fluid
Eplan Preplanning
The focus is increasingly on the overall Preplanning Fluid Power
picture of an in-house process landscape,
particularly at management levels such as
VPs and IT: “Rather than getting bogged Eplan Electric P8 Eplan Pro Panel
Electrical Engineering 3D Control Cabinet
down in individual activities, you want to Design
create viable solutions for the future,” notes
Seitz. “At this point, frankly, there is still a
lot to be done: a yawning gap exists between
the current possibilities and their implemen- Manufacturing Control Cabinet Engineering
tation. In mechanical engineering, for exam-
ple, we’re still encountering a departmen-
tal mentality. This needs to be abandoned
in order for a digitisation strategy to work.”
What are the company’s objectives? What
does the internal IT landscape look like?

s4e # 01.2019

At a Glance
A picture is worth a thousand
words: when it comes to design,
engineering and manufacturing
tasks, it is one thing to have
the proper expert systems. But
what about the connections
between the systems, or the sin-
gle source of truth? During pro-
cess consultation at Eplan and
Cideon’s exhibition stand, con-
sultants help attendees sketch a
comprehensive overview of the
status quo of their company’s IT
structure.
There is enormous potential in
this process. The interaction of
all systems, from engineering to
production, is the key to greater
added value. The proper structur-
ing of projects and templates
significantly increases reuse
potential.
A well-structured process
depends on the proper connec-
tions. What components are needed
for design? Which manufacturers
provide digital device data? A
standardised database answers
the most important questions at
the outset of a project.
33
Attendees and consultants work together
to come up with an initial overview of the
status quo right at the Eplan and Cideon
exhibition stand, sketching an outline on
the illuminated blackboards provided and
committing it to paper afterward. “We use
this to delineate the engineering systems,”
says Seitz, “while considering upstream
and downstream process structures con-
ceptually.”
F o c u s i n g o n ­­C u s t o m e r
Goals
First, the maturity level of inter-system com-
munication is assessed in coordination
with the customer – manually, digitally or
in an integrated manner. It is incumbent
on our team to take customer goals into
consideration, because they ultimately
determine the concrete solution scenarios
that consultants will develop further. Next,
initial recommendations are made to
achieve sustainable improvement in auto-
mation technology processes. “Always
using our open software systems and the
corresponding standard interfaces, of
course,” says Seitz. “Our focus is on engi-
neering with an awareness of the entire
order flow, including preplanning, engi-
neering and manufacturing.”
The follow-up continues after the fair,
as customers are provided with a detailed
presentation and discussion of the results.
This is the starting point for optimising the
digital process structure. “Of course, we
are happy to offer support with continuing
the implementation,” says Seitz. —
34 Integration

Integration

The systems jungle in mechanical and plant

­engineering has given many workers callues on
their fingers from importing and exporting data.
Eplan and Cideon have countered this with
­industry-tested connectors and direct integration.

TEXT ULRICH KLÄSENER AND MATHIAS BAYERSDÖRFER

s4e # 01.2019

T he notion of the smart
factory has been
­thriving for some time
now – bright and
shiny, benignly emis-
sion-free and defined
by the automated
high-level precision of data-driven inde-
pendence. How does product develop-
ment fit in now that the Internet of Things
(IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and Indus-
try 4.0 have already made inroads in pro-
duction? “Best-case scenario: everything
is perfectly networked,” says Eplan’s
Thomas Michels. “In other words, we need
to design development tools for data con-
sistency right here, right now.” Once the
solutions for automated data transfer
between the myriad software tools are in
place, anything will be possible. “In par-
ticular, collaboration scenarios in engineer-
ing and design will be extremely efficient,”
Michels continues. “And at the smart fac-
tory, of course, general engineering data
will be utilised at every stage of the value
chain, all the way to maintenance.”
It makes no difference if the choice is
interfaces or direct integration: unrestrict-
ed communication across all spheres of
engineering is the moment of truth for prac-
titioners. Eplan and Cideon have devel-
oped Syngineer, for example, which syn-
chronises the development of machinery
and plants. Electrical and mechanical engi-
neers, PLC programmers and IT staff are
breathing sighs of relief. “When faced with
tight deadlines,” notes Syngineer Consult-
ant David Katschinski about the solution’s
potential, “if you have precise information
about the progress of a project, you can
deal with last-minute changes better.”
Simple Format –
Easy Operation
When it comes to bidirectional data exchange
with adjacent disciplines, thinking outside
the box is not an option, but a must. The
AutomationML association – including
­Mitsubishi Electric, Siemens and Eplan –
has led the way in connecting ECAD with
the design tools of control manufacturers
35
effectively. Thomas Funke, Eplan Technical
Product Manager : “Until now, Eplan primar-
ily provided interfaces for each PLC manu-
facturer’s tools.” The downside: adjusting
to upgrades and enhancements was a com-
plicated process. “In order to continue our
lead on connectors in the medium term,”
said Funke, “we needed to come up with a
neutral data format, which led to the estab-
lishment of AutomationML.” This XML-based
markup language is an open, standardised
format that is easy to use: “Drastic engineer-
ing chan­ges are no longer necessary – and
therein lies its real value.”
Seeing things from a customer rather
than a supply perspective is sometimes Wired
easier than anticipated. For years, Eplan has
been relying on eCl@ss, a vendor-neutral,
open classification system. Since Version
2.4, Eplan Platform has supported the
import of data to parts management accord-
ing to the eCl@ss standard. The data is
imported in a process that configures the
assignment of classes and characteristics
from eCl@ss to product groups and part
properties in Eplan parts management.
“Transport Medium”
for ERP and PDM Cideon Integration
Eplan is unveiling the big picture with Eplan Meshing individual disciplines has
ERP/PDM Integration Suite. Integration into been at the heart of Cideon’s exper-
existing ERP, PDM and PLM system land- tise for over two decades. More than
scapes makes bidirectional data exchange 40,000 users in over 650 companies
possible without ever leaving the Eplan worldwide work with Cideon’s integra-
Platform work environment. Eplan connec- tion solutions. Cideon is currently devel-
tors rely on the Integration Suite as a “trans- oping SAP Engineering Control Center
port medium” for Enterprise Resource Plan- interfaces to AutoCAD, Inventor, Solid
ning, Product Data Management and Edge, Solidworks and Eplan Electric
Product Lifecycle Management. Integrat- P8. More Cideon products include the
ed data management is becoming more information and process synchronisa-
concrete with Eplan Teamcenter Integra- tion between Dassault Systèmes’
tion, PLM Pro.File Connector, PTC Wind- 3DExperience landscape and SAP, as
chill Integration and Eplan Vault Integra- well as Vault Professional Integration
tion. “We’re talking about a continuous to SAP PLM. Cideon’s Conversion
process and seamless data flow,” explains Engine, which automatically gener-
Eplan’s Michels. “When Eplan is integrat- ates neutral and exchange formats
ed, product models will also include ECAD from application-specific data formats,
data like connection lists, schematics for is also getting high marks in the SAP
electrical engineering and fluid power, PLM environment.
parts lists and Eplan evaluations, all com-
pleted in ERP, PDM and PLM.” —
36 Integration

F L I EG E N D E

F L I EG E N D E

F L I EG E N D E
F L I EG E N D E

A
F L I EG E N D E F L I EG E N D E F L I EG E N D E

F L I EG E N D E
R
I
F L I EG E N D E
B
O R F L I EG E N D E

N
F L I EG E N D E E
F L I EG E N D E

O
F L I EG E N D E F L I EG E N D E

S
B E
F L I EG E N D E

R F L I EG E N D E
F L I EG E N D E

V
F L I EG E N D E F L I EG E N D E
A
T
ST E R N WA RT E
O Y
ST E R N WA RT E R
ST E R N WA RT E

ST E R N WA RT E
ST E R N WA RT E

ST E R N WA RT E
ST E R N WA RT E
ST E R N WA RT E

ST E R N WA RT E
ST E R N WA RT E

ST E R N WA RT E
ST E R N WA RT E

ST E R N WA RT E

s4e # 01.2019
   37

SOFIA

The research aircraft SOFIA allows in-depth

­observation of the universe by recording infrared
radiation. Eplan is now providing a solution for ­
the observatory’s complex electrical engineering.
TEXT B I R G I T H A G E L S C H U E R

SOFIA during a test flight with
the hatch open and an infrared
telescope.
I
n astronomy, the higher the
observatory the better the view.
Researching the universe using
the infrared spectrum is some-
thing that is almost impossible
from Earth’s surface, which is
why NASA and the German Aer-
ospace Center (DLR) began operating the
world’s only “airborne observatory” back
in 2010. A Boeing 747SP was modified and
equipped with a 17-tonne telescope with
a mirror diameter of 2.7 metres, providing
in-depth observations at the aircraft’s flight
altitude – including insight into the forma-
tion of stars and planetary systems. The
aeroplane, named SOFIA, (Stratospheric
Observatory for Infrared Astronomy), takes
off for research flights several times each
week from Palmdale, California, and sci-
entists have already been able to detect
several previously unknown molecules in
space and to make detailed observations
of the births of stars.
Closer to the Stars,
Close Enough to Earth
Large stationary observatories, like the one
in the Atacama Desert in Chile, do make
observations in the infrared spectrum, but
since they are land-based telescopes they
have only a limited field of vision in the
near-infrared and mid-infrared ranges. Fur-
thermore, they can see nothing at all in the
far-infrared range because water vapour
in Earth’s atmosphere absorbs this infra-
red radiation. That’s why SOFIA flies over
it – at an altitude of 12 to 14 kilometres. A
satellite can look into space as far as SOFIA
can, but has the disadvantage of a lim- >
38 Integration

> ited operational lifespan. The SOFIA

project partners can equip the flying obser-
vatory with new detectors, cameras, and
other instruments over and over again and
thus set new research objectives. This
explains SOFIA’s considerably longer oper-
ating lifespan as compared to a satellite
– an example of sustainable basic research.
The telescope was manufactured in Ger-
many – and is a true masterpiece of mecha-
nical and equipment engineering. “It can
be aligned with an accuracy of 0.2 arcse-
conds, and its supports are so precisely
engineered that its almost eight tonnes of
weight can be moved in any of the three
dimensions with the push of a fingertip,”
says aerospace electronics engineer Simon
Beckmann. He works at the German SOFIA
Institute (DSI) and shares responsibility for
the telescope’s electronics. Describing the
0.2 arcseconds in everyday language, he
says, “Just imagine: from inside the aircraft,
the telescope is using a laser to home in on
a penny located sixteen kilometres away, all
while flying at eight hundred kilometres an
hour through what is basically a hurricane.”

International Teamwork

There is a strict division of labour for oper-

ating SOFIA: NASA/USRA (Universities
Space Research Association) is responsi-
ble for the flights and the aircraft. The SOFIA
Science Mission Operation Center (SMO)
at the NASA Ames Research Center in SIMON BECKMANN
Mountain View, California manages scien-
tific operations. The German SOFIA Insti- from the German SOFIA Institute (DSI) is one of the people
tute (DSI) at the University of Stuttgart is responsible for the telescope‘s electronics in the „airborne
responsible for ongoing telescope devel- observatory.“
opment and maintenance. Most of the
almost fifty DSI employees are based in
Palmdale, California, where they prepare
new research flights and also fly on the

Our very special

missions. The team immediately springs
into action if the telescope malfunctions or
if there are any irregularities.

requirements
If there is a problem with the telescope’s
electronics, previously printed schematics
must be examined, which were previous-

mean that we are

ly stored on an entire wall filled with shelves
of binders. As Beckmann explains, “A num-
ber of specialist companies, all of which

probably using
used different ECAD systems, were involved
in developing the telescope’s individual
systems some twenty years ago. All the

around ­90 per cent of

electrical documentation was delivered as
PDF files, sometimes in wildly divergent
formats. Before it was always a challenge

Eplan’s functionality.
not to lose sight of the bigger picture while
troubleshooting.” The basic concept they
wanted, according to Beckmann, was to

s4e # 01.2019

Infrared images – these are from the constellation
of Orion – shed light on the development of stellar
systems and the birth of young stars.
have a DSI-specific ECAD system built
upon three equal mainstays. The solution
that was implemented, based on Eplan
Electric P8, is not the standard version of
the program at all, but instead has been
comprehensively adapted to this specific
application. TPO Engineering Services, in
Crailsheim, Germany, was commissioned
to implement a solution that included con-
verting the original heterogeneous design
data into uniform Eplan documentation and
meeting the requirements profile, along
with many special requests.
The first of the three Eplan-based tools
is used to modify or redesign the tele-
scope’s electrical systems and electronic
components, as well as for testing equip-
ment. The second is used as a solution for
maintenance and repairs: at the heart of
this solution is the Harness Master Dia-
gram, an overview schematic of the entire
telescope. The third Eplan tool, Quality
Assurance, is the documentary evidence
of all of the telescope’s wiring. Explaining
why the Eplan option module is so impor-
tant, Beckmann says that “when the tele-
scope was delivered, there weren’t any
replacement units. Currently we either
develop and produce them internally at
DSI or have the manufacturers rebuild
them. Since the technology has changed
quite a lot, improvements are naturally fun-
nelled into the rebuilds. While the replace-
ment units have the same interface as the
telescope, internally they’re completely
different beasts. The option module ensures
that the DSI team can act quickly in the
event of a malfunction and that SOFIA
always lifts off on its next mission with the
latest documentation.” This basis is also
important in approval for airworthiness and
in the monitoring of revision management.
The SOFIA team was faced with a chal-
lenge when introducing the software
because the telescope component sup-
pliers at the time had delivered a variety
of different forms of documentation and
schematic implementations. As Beckmann
recalls, “We couldn’t just incorporate the
documents one to one. Each document
had to be adapted and sometimes newly
reassigned within the structure. Some doc-
  39
umentation would be missing, or compo-
nents weren’t clearly represented, so that
we would have to review system functions
and have our colleagues in California check
them again during maintenance work in
cases of ambiguities.”
Intensive Use of the
Possibilities
For Beckmann, the eighteen-month project
of transferring the very complex documen-
tation into Eplan was a major team achieve-
ment, with passion and perseverance from
everyone involved: “Our very special
requirements mean that we are probably
using around 90 per cent of Eplan’s func-
tionality.” With the new and uniform ECAD
documentation based in Eplan, those in
charge of the SOFIA telescope feel well
prepared for future work – and especially
for quick troubleshooting. —
40 Integration

Wind Power

120 Metres Up
Routing individual cable lines in a wind turbine
at a length of about 120 metres per phase is
a complex project. An experiment at Nordex
demonstrates that the right software can yield
potential savings and achieve accuracy in the
design process.

TEXT THOMAS SCHMELZER

s4e # 01.2019

The digitised wind
turbine: with the 3D
design process, all
components are record-
ed and assigned auto-
matically.
ACCELERATED SHEET
METAL PROCESSING
The electrical engineers at Nordex
are using Eplan Platform to stand-
ardise development as much as
possible. The software records
everything that is installed, includ-
ing every detail from parts lists and
schematics. This results in greater
accuracy and less time spent on
the sheet metal processing of the
control cabinets, for example.
Development engineer Enrico Dur-
ka explains: “In the past, we used
templates to make drilling patterns
for control cabinet and switch box
production. Now we can generate
a drilling pattern in Eplan Pro Panel
and send it as a DXF file straight to
the processing machine.” The
delivery time for drilled control cab-
inets was reduced from several
weeks to as little as 48 hours, with
a one-week maximum.
N
ordex, the world’s
fifth-largest manu-
facturer of wind
turbines, assigned
two teams the task
of measuring the
nacelle of a wind
turbine with fifty cables. This test would
allow Nordex to find out whether engineer-
ing design time could actually be short-
ened by means of software-supported wire
harness design. The results were clear:
while one team of engineers used a proto-
type to measure the cable lengths by hand,
their co-workers saved time by completing
the job with digital support.
Martin Richter, in charge of harness design
at Nordex, remembers the experiment well.
“The two team members working manually
needed an entire day to record the exact
measurements,” he says. It went markedly
faster at the computer. “Thanks to Eplan
Harness proD, the other team completed
the same task in just a third of the time.” A
second test confirmed the result; moreover,
the error rate dropped significantly. “Because
of deviations in the sub-centimetre range,
the Eplan routing track always fits precise-
ly, “says Richter. “We don’t need to budget
for extra cabling, even with long cables.”
Precise calculation of the cable routing
– to the tower and from the control cabinets
to consumers – is time-intensive. So Eplan
Harness proD simply does the routing in the
3D model. Richter explains the advantages:
“The wire harnesses are routed along the
inner surface of the nacelle. This makes it
extremely challenging to determine lengths.”
The real highlight with Eplan is that the soft-
ware assigns properties to each cable, inclu-
ding control points, bend radii, and even
the position of cable ties and earthing straps.
“As a result, we benefit from the fact that
all cable lengths, connector variants and
other details are now consistent and clear,”
says Richter. Nordex electrical designers
rely on a trusted duo to perform wire length
determination: Eplan Pro Panel in conjunc-
tion with Eplan Smart Wiring. The founda-
41
tion of this approach is data from 3D assem-
bly layouts and connection information from
schematics. On the basis of this informa­
tion, Eplan Pro Panel uses precision 3D
­routing to calculate the necessary wire length.
An electronic data set is then generated and
sent to the external wire assembler. Wolf-
gang Conrad, Head of Cabinet Develop-
ment at Nordex, concurs: “We only use Eplan
Pro Panel and the Smart Wiring Module to
design new control cabinets. That’s what a
high standard of quality requires.”
Centimetre-level precision in the calcu-
lation of complex wire harnesses is only one
result of the collaboration between the two
companies. Nordex is also taking full advan-
tage of the possibilities Eplan software offers
for 3D assembly layouts in the control cab-
inet. “All components used, down to screws,
nuts and washers, are recorded precisely
and then assigned to projects automatical-
ly,” says Conrad, praising the high quality
of the schematics. Any physical inconsist-
encies are detected immediately.
Automated Line
­P roduction
The wind turbine manufacturer relies on
the use of software not only for the stand-
ardisation of its database, but also for the
automation of its line production. “Our goal
is to exploit the opportunities of standard-
ised development and production to the
fullest,” explains Conrad.
The next step for Nordex electrical engi-
neers is to digitise the entire wind turbine.
More than five hundred sensors are already
installed in a single system, and the num-
ber is rising. “Once we have an accurate
digital mock-up, we can design without a
physical prototype and produce an initial
sample for manufacturing right away,” says
Dr Klaus Faltin, Head of Electrical Drives
& Design at Nordex. “In future, we will work
even more intensively with Eplan Viewer –
right on the production line, for example,”
he predicts. The test phase is in progress…—
42
Research
Under One Roof
From strategic project consulting to systems de-
ployment: Cideon collaborated closely with SAP
to implement SAP PLM at Sartorius, the leading
global provider of laboratory and bio-process
technology.
TE X T U LRICH KLÄSEN ER
C
ompanies with
annual double-dig-
it growth that regu-
larly supplement
their portfolios by
acquiring comple-
mentary technolo-
gies know what heterogeneity really means:
heterogeneous product assortments, het-
erogeneous system landscapes, hetero-
geneous workflows, heterogeneous tech-
nologies. Ongoing business operations
require intelligently organised growth
dynamics, and Sartorius is no different.
The company, based in Göttingen, Ger-
many, is conscientiously yet consequen-
tially pushing forward the standardisation
and harmonisation of its business process-
es around the globe.
The Global Harmonization Project has
been running under the catchy title “shape
IT!” since its kick-off in January 2012. Spear-
heading this worldwide consolidation is
SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP
ERP). SAP ERP Central Component (SAP
ECC) 6.0, which was first introduced at the
company’s headquarters in Göttingen in
Integration
40,000
USERS
in 650 companies around the globe
2012, has been successively rolled out in working with Cideon integration solutions.
Sartorius sites around the world since 2015.
Most company locations in Europe and
3,400
Asia have already been connected to the
system. The shape IT! programme is
expected to be completed by 2020: “The
rollout deadlines have all been met since
2012,” says IT PLM Team Leader Michael
Bogus. “We'll have integrated all 19 pro- PATENTS
duction facilities and 90 per cent of the held by Sartorius AG as parent company
sales locations.” IT PLM In-House Consult- of the group.
ant Sebastian Slomczyk sees strategic rea-
sons for the remarkable fidelity to delivery
300
dates in the environment of major IT pro-
jects: “If the IT is installed early, it means
the whole project has been thoroughly
thought through.”
DAYS
Single Source of Truth was the project duration, from kick-off to
go-live of SAP PLM.
Since December 2013, a small team of
experts in the Sartorius IT PLM Department
has been pushing the next step in integrat-
ed data management: the introduction of
SAP Product Lifecycle Management (SAP
PLM). Why SAP PLM? “It just makes sense,”
s4e # 01.2019

Cells are cultivated in a bioreactor so that they can grow,
helping to produce biopharmaceutical ingredients.
Bogus explains, “as we are also system-de-
pendent to a certain extent.” That’s because
where SAP ERP is found, PLM is already
a part of it – external PDM systems become
redundant just as interface management
between decentralised systems does. Oth-
er solutions were also discussed during
the intensive selection process, but as
Cideon Senior Sales Director Martin B ­ entin
put it, “SAP PLM actually offers the best
system to bring together all the worlds
without creating discontinuities. Everyone
using the single source of truth in a single
system is working with physically identical
information. This is certainly the strongest
argument in terms of data consistency.”
Sartorius needs all of this. As attractive
as the prospect of revenue growth, expand-
ed portfolios and the development of new
markets may be, in newly acquired com-
panies Sartorius must deal with what Bogus
describes as a “colourful bouquet” both
of authoring tools in the CAx segment and
of PDM (product data management) sys-
tems. “The portfolio simply reflects the vari-
ety, including all sorts of shadow IT. The
great number of acquisitions requires sys-
tem harmonisation. We want to consolidate
the variety.” Specifically, there were dis-
cussions back in 2013 about replacing
various PDM solutions while keeping the
Inventor, Creo and Catia V5 CAD systems.
The Developer
Stands Alone
“In principle, Cideon was immediately ready
for this task,” Slomczyk recalls. “Cideon
itself had already implemented Product-
stream Professional in the Melsungen plant
in 2008 and had previously managed the
existing solution – the company’s complete
package of technology and expertise was
the perfect fit for the job.” Cideon’s offer
also included its multi-CAD approach,
which underscores the long-standing coop-
eration with SAP on the one hand, and the
comprehensive perspective of strategic
project consulting to systems deployment
on the other. As an SAP Platinum Partner,
Cideon develops integrations between SAP
and CAD authoring systems (AutoCAD,
Inventor, Solid Edge, SOLIDWORKS)
43
through the SAP ECTR (Engineering Con-
trol Center) integration platform for Eplan
Electric P8 in the ECAD segment. Eplan
Electric P8, the market-leading CAE sys-
tem from Cideon affiliate Eplan, offers inno-
vative possibilities for designing, docu-
menting and managing electrical
engineering automation projects. Cideon
in turn is responsible for the relevant soft-
ware tools to harmonise heterogeneous
system landscapes, including the import-
ing and exporting of data for system inte-
grations, and the generating of neutral for-
mats with the Cideon Conversion Engine
in the context of output management from
CAx to Office.
As early as 2014, Cideon was supply-
ing Sartorius AG with the Conversion
Engine, the universal converter par excel-
lence. As the hub for all data, the Cideon
Conversion Engine makes everything in
any document readable across the entire
company, no matter where or when. C ­ ideon
SAP PLM Consultant Matthias Demuth
­clarifies: “If a buyer wants to access CAD
data, they can do it through the results
from the Conversion Engine.” >
44 Integration

> At Sartorius, the engine automatically MARTIN BENTIN

generates neutral, exchange and web for-
mats, including data preparation, from Creo, Cideon Senior Sales Director
Catia, Inventor, and even Office documents
(Excel, Word, PowerPoint) in a backbone

SAP PLM offers

process and makes them available for com-
pany-wide access – including a date-stam-
ping and authorisation concept. This makes
life easier and the processes faster, which
is especially helpful when Sartorius is dealing
with the regulatory environment of the FDA
in the United States. Slomczyk recalls: “Pre-
the best system
viously, the drawings were created in design
engineering and printed, then the printouts
were stamped, scanned, and finally uploa-
to bring together
all the worlds
ded into SharePoint – production happened
afterwards. In some cases, documentation
was also written onto routing slips: unbelie-

without ­creating
vable. The digital signature is much more
effective.”

A Perfect Introduction

What’s certain right now is that the Cideon

discontinuities.
Conversion Engine will be installed at every
Sartorius location. However, the Conver-
sion Engine is only one component of the
new SAP PLM workflow, albeit an essen-
tial one. In October 2017, SAP PLM went
live at the production facility in Guxhagen,
Germany. “Cideon had previously installed
a pilot test system and now implemented
SAP ECTR in the production system for the
first time,” Sebastian Slomczyk says. SAP
Engineering Control Center isn’t just the
data cockpit for integrating design engi-
neering and development into SAP PLM.
It also allows the development and design
teams, as well as Office users, to access
current product data – a sort of 360-degree
user product description with information
about mechanical engineering, electrical
engineering, software and more. Bogus is
impressed with SAP ECTR’s intuitive user
interface: “Data handling with drag and
drop, a Windows look and feel, search
functions like the big search engines: it’s
the perfect introduction to working with
SAP PLM.” The engineers in development
and design had already been prepared for
the new SAP PLM, using the train-the-­
trainer principle: Cideon trained the key
users first, who in turn will instruct their
colleagues during the rollout around the
globe. As Bentin explains, “The principle
has been borne out in the substantial
increases in identification and organisa-
tion with the new system, as well as in the
acceptance within the department.”
Cideon and Sartorius primarily used the
time before the SAP PLM go-live to pre- Michael Bogus (at left) and Sebastian Slomczyk.

s4e # 01.2019

pare the inventory data from Productstream
Professional and/or AutoCAD and Inven-
tor, of course. “Data is a valuable asset,”
Bentin says. “Once the legacy system has
been replaced, SAP PLM contains all the
data and the complex interactions of the
technical, commercial and logistical worlds
internally, within the company.” In other
words: data export, 3D records, design
parts lists, Office documents and the prepa-
ration and import of CAD drawings must
be understood foremost as a qualitative
challenge.
Tipping the Scales
The obvious and immediate benefit of the
SAP PLM solution is that manufacturing
parts lists are generated automatically and
reliably within the process and appear as
unambiguous data for supplier enquiries
or production orders. “The bills of materi-
als remain a major topic, of course,”
­Slomczyk says. “The difference is that engi-
neers don’t have to draw up actual written
lists anymore; no one has to give it a thought
these days.” The same applies to the trace-
ability of the approval and change pro-
cesses. For Sartorius, however, the PLM
requirements aren’t driven by a complex
array of products and variants. “We aren’t
building planes here, even if our products
are getting smarter,” Sebastian Slomczyk
says. But collaborations between suppli-
ers, idea management and Research and
Development are important for us: “Col-
laboration can tip the scales. We want a
central data repository that all authorised
personnel can access, at least in princi-
ple, not individual data silos.” After all, the
company’s corporate values include sus-
tainability, enjoyment and “openness, the
key source of change and progress.”
45
More value creation is already taking sha-
pe with a flawless database and the new
possibilities of digital workflows. The Gux-
hagen production facility, primarily a site for
mechanical engineering and plant enginee-
ring with high amounts of assembly, furni-
shes suppliers with data. As Slomczyk exp-
lains, this data “has all been run through the
Conversion Engine.” The data must be under-
AT A GLANCE
stood as an asset – “data mining” is the key-
word here – that the Life Science Research Sartorius AG is a prospering mar-
portfolio at Sartorius can use to develop new ket leader for bioprocess solutions
products, services and ideas. “Terabytes of and laboratory products and servi-
new data are being added from research ces in 2019. The company’s Lab
and development, from acquisitions and Products & Services Division pro-
from client usability studies. We have to take duces innovative laboratory instru-
advantage of this, and that can only work mentation and supplies, with a
with a solid foundation on the system side focus on selling them to academic
of things. We’re very well positioned for this research institutions and to
with SAP PLM.” research and quality-assurance
Bogus’ preliminary conclusion after using labs in pharmaceutical and bio-
SAP PLM for a solid year: “The change­over pharmaceutical companies. The
went relatively smoothly, and now we’ve Bioprocess Solutions Division, with
been able to gain a year of experience, its broad portfolio of disposable
which has been good so far. We wanted to solutions, contributes to the safe
implement SAP in as standard a way as pos- and efficient manufacturing of bio-
sible, and that is why it’s a very stable, good tech medications and vaccines.
solution that we can roll out in good con-
science.” Cideon’s expertise – basically a Headquarters Göttingen
complete package from conception to sys- Employees 8,100
tem selection and training, implementation Founded in 1870
and service – continues to be in demand at
Sartorius. There are specific plans for C
­ ideon
Customer Care Services to support and
­optimise operations going forward (ERP
replacement and data migration from Vault
to SAP PLM are on the agenda for Royston,
near Cambridge, in 2019). Cideon will be
introducing SAP ECTR and the Conversion
Engine. Last but not least, Cideon is build-
ing new bridges with the impending inte-
gration of Eplan Electric P8 into SAP, when
Sartorius will be able to pick up the pace
on mechatronic workflows as well. —
46 Last But Not Least

WILHELM CONRAD ROENTGEN, 1845–1923, DISCOVERER OF ROENTGEN RAYS

“I didn’t think,
I investigated.”

T h e D i s c o v e r y ­­
of X-Rays

Friday, 8 November 1895. Wilhelm Conrad

Roentgen, physics chair at the University
of Würzburg, is cleaning up his labora­tory
after a long day of work. He’s been ex­­
perimenting for months with the recent dis-
covery of cathode rays. On this day, the
rays happen to hit a piece of paper that is
coated with a material containing barium.
Although the lights in the lab are dimmed
and the cathode ray tubes shielded, the
paper shows a reaction: Roentgen discov-
ers an invisible radiation with completely
unknown properties. After attempting a few
more experiments, Roentgen sets up a
photo plate and records the first X-ray
images: a wooden box, a hunting rifle –
and his wife’s hand, whose ring seems to
be hovering around the bone of her finger.
His discovery revolutionises the world of
medicine. It has brought new chances for
medical research and treating disease ever
since. —

s4e # 01.2019
 47

Service

Can we help
you?
The Eplan Professional Services and Cideon
­Support find a solution for every problem.

You can pose your question within The Eplan Academy and Cideon All the information about Cideon
the software by using the drop-down courses provide a variety of training Support and Cideon trainng
menu item Help > Make an Eplan offerings and qualifications. All you courses can be found at
Support Inquiry. Or register with need to know can be found at www.cideon.com/services
Eplan Solution Center at www.cideon.com/services and
www.eplan.de/esc_en www.eplan.academy

PUBLICATION DETAILS
s4e - software4efficiency by Eplan and Cideon. Issue 01.2019. Publisher Eplan Software & Service GmbH & Co. KG, An der alten Ziegelei 2, D-40789 Monheim am Rhein,
Germany, Phone +49 2173 3964-0, Fax +49 2173 3964-25, redaktion@eplan.de, www.eplan.de. Managing Editor Gabriele Geiger. Editor-in-Chief Andreas Haider, Annika
Pellmann. Editorial Staff Mathias Bayersdörfer, Sophie Bruns, Gabriele Geiger, Birgit Hagelschuer, Andreas Haider, Gregor Karasinsky, Ulrich Kläsener, Hans-Robert Koch,
Sonja Koesling, Jörg Lantzsch, Annika Pellmann. English Translation Anthony B. Heric, Paul Outlaw. English Editing Casey Butterfield. Idea and Realisation muehlhaus-
moers corporate communications gmbh, Spichernstraße 6, D-50672 Cologne, Germany, Phone +49 221 951533-0, info@muehlhausmoers.com, www.muehlhausmoers.com.
Project Director Sophie Bruns. Art Director Sophie Feist, Anja-Martina Hamann. Graphics, Production Sophie Feist, Helene Harberling, Michael Konrad, Conrad Wegener.
Lithography purpur GmbH, Cologne, Germany. Printing Grafische Werkstatt Druckerei und Verlag Gebr. Kopp GmbH & Co. KG, Cologne, Germany.

PHOTO CREDITS
Cover: Silvia Ambrosini, Sophie Feist, Mike Lemanski; p. 02: Valéry Kloubert; p. 03: John M Lund Photography Inc/Getty Images (road with fire tyre tracks, picture repetition: p. 28); p. 03 alvarez/Getty
Images (face collage, picture repetition: p. 09); pp. 06–07: Hannover Messe (Messe); VanReeel/iStock (pattern); p. 13: Sigfried López/Getty Images; p. 18-19: Westend61/Getty Images; p. 27: Ulrich
Sendler; p. 29: Valéry Kloubert; p. 30-31: Valéry Kloubert; p. 32: GCapture/iStock (hand with pen); p. 36: Richard Newstead/Getty Images (sunrise in space); p. 37: NASA (SOFIA plane); p. 39: NASA.
All rights for photos not mentioned in this list belong to Eplan/Friedhelm Loh Group.
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