AUTOMATED CONTROL CABINET MANUFACTURING WITH NX INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL DESIGN

AUTOMATED CONTROL CABINET MANUFACTURING WITH NX INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL DESIGN

NX Industrial Electrical Design provides a digital twin of the control cabinet and all associated electrical products to enable automated control cabinet manufacturing.

Autonomous manufacturing has now emerged. Just as electrified factories in Industry 2.0 and Industry 3.0 introduced robots, fully automated processes will become the standard across many sectors in the coming years — this is the essence of Industry 4.0.

Intelligent, decentralized robots will communicate and adapt to each other, with each robot performing a specific role while all work toward a common objective. Error-prone human intervention is eliminated so personnel can focus on more meaningful and creative tasks.

Automated Control Cabinet Manufacturing

The foundation for automated control cabinet manufacturing is consistent and accurate data across the entire process chain. Therefore, digital twins of electrical products as well as a digital twin of the control cabinet are required for automated cabinet production. A prerequisite for self-processing systems is the interaction between simulation and automation. Monitoring and simulation of the entire production process are cloud-based.

The runtime environment enables automated system operation on SIMATIC controllers within the control cabinet. Based on the comprehensive digital twin, robots can automatically place DIN rails and cable ducts on the mounting plate. Robotic arms perform self-managed tasks without the need for explicit programming. This allows different mounting plate configurations to be set up flexibly.

Digital Control Cabinet Design with NX Industrial Electrical Design

The NX Industrial Electrical Design software tool, part of the Xcelerator™ portfolio — the comprehensive and integrated software and services portfolio from Siemens Digital Industries Software — delivers a complete electrical engineering package for industrial applications. It enables the creation of electrical, pneumatic, and hydraulic schematics as well as complete control cabinet layouts. Built-in reporting capabilities allow users to quickly generate all required documentation for design deliverables.

Digital twin of the control cabinet in NX Industrial Electrical Design

The software tool is based on an integrated data model in which 2D electrical schematic symbols and their corresponding representations in 3D cabinet design are associatively linked. This ensures that electrical engineers always work with consistent data and can seamlessly navigate between electrical schematics and cabinet layouts. A consistent 3D control cabinet layout in NX can be delivered directly to automated control cabinet manufacturing.

TIA Selection Tool – Control Panel Design function

Intelligent Control Panel Design

With the Control Panel Design function in the TIA Selection Tool, electrical engineers can design and size a machine’s main electrical system in accordance with standards. This significantly simplifies electrical engineering tasks. For example, load feeders can be designed according to UL or IEC standards, including cable sizing and short-circuit calculations. Relevant accessories are also taken into account.

This means electrical engineers can digitally define a fully standards-compliant load feeder assembly. This information can be further processed in NX Industrial Electrical Design or the SIEMENS Industry Mall.

Digital Products Completing the Digital Twin

To ensure a smooth engineering workflow, electrical engineers require high-quality technical product data for electrical components that is manufacturer-verified. SIEMENS Industry Mall provides electrical engineers with access to intelligent Siemens product data.

NX Industrial Electrical Design manages manufacturer catalog data within the NX Reuse Library. From there, intelligent product data can be used to create electrical schematics and control cabinet designs. The NX Reuse Library can be populated directly via SIEMENS Industry Mall or CAx Download Manager. Complete digital product descriptions from Siemens help finalize the digital twin of the control cabinet.

Siemens Industry Mall integrated into NX Industrial Electrical Design

Source: Siemens

SDE Digital Technology Co., Ltd. (SDE TECH) was established in 2014. In 2018, we were honored to become a Smart Expert Partner – a leading partner of Siemens Digital Industries Software in the Southeast Asia – Asia Pacific region for Siemens NX (Unigraphics NX), Simcenter, Solid Edge, Tecnomatix, and Teamcenter management solutions. Organizations and customers who wish to contact SDE TECH can use the following information: