Insights from Ray Gaynor, EPLAN Software & Services, President - Americas

Given the importance of the Rockwell Automation partnership to EPLAN USA, Automation Fair is one of the center points of our event calendar each year. This year, I had the opportunity to chat with Ray Gaynor, EPLAN Software & Services President – Americas, and hear some of his insights relating to the challenges the industry is working on, the importance of collaboration within the industry and thoughts on the EPLAN capabilities that particularly resonated with the customers, prospects and partners we talked to at the show.

Q: What were the pressing challenges Automation Fair attendees were working to solve this year?

http://www.eplanusa.com/us/solutions/control-cabinet-and-switchgear-engineering/eplan-pro-panel/A lot of people I talked to are working to tie data generated for the controls design side of things into the overall electrical design. They are working to make this bridge so they can use data one time and be able to leverage that data throughout the engineering process and also into the manufacturing process. Simply, they are trying to figure out ways to use the same information created in electrical design to design the cabinet and to control the manufacturing and assembly of the cabinet – even going as far as creating CNC programs for drilling and milling of cabinets during manufacturing and automatic wire routing during assembly.

Q: We collaborate a lot with other automation solution providers and with Rockwell Automation. Why is this collaboration so important?

Given the advanced technology in the industry today, there is not one company that can supply everything. As the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)/The Connected Enterprise movement advances, you have to have partners and address these opportunities together. Rockwell Automation understands this and is one of the reasons Automation Fair is so successful.

Automation Fair brings together solution providers that complement one another – there are synergies. Partners each bring in certain levels of capabilities and expertise that make the whole much stronger.

From an EPLAN standpoint, we want to be part of the ecosystem of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). EPLAN takes data from conceptual design and engineering through the engineer processes and also business processes efficiently, which is an important set of capabilities as the IIoT develops. We also collaborate to adhere to global standards because by adhering to global standards we can share information with other suppliers and our customers are not faced with data only being useable in one context.

Q: Which EPLAN capabilities have resonated the most this year?

Our customers and prospects are very excited about the EPLAN Data Portal being able to tie into Rockwell’s configuration tools such as ProposalWorks or Raise. For instance, we are creating a direct link for Rockwell Automation users to the EPLAN Data Portal and from there you can move that data directly into an EPLAN project.

Another area of excitement is bi-directional communications between Rockwell products and EPLAN in the PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) area. With bi-directional capabilities you can set up a PLC and then can send that information right within the electrical project schematics, but then you can also change things within the schematic, upload and modify the program within the PLC.

From a panel design standpoint being able to take information and move it through the engineering process into manufacturing seamlessly is also very attractive to our customers.