At Hanover Fair 2025, Eplan demonstrated online the possibilities offered by its new Eplan Copilot for the automation of control cabinet development. Industrial AI, made in Germany, helps to achieve results in seconds that would normally take days or weeks. For AI, Eplan and its team led by Marcus Reitz, Head of Data Science Services, rely on collaboration with Microsoft and Siemens.
“AI will revolutionize the engineering of the future,” said Sebastian Seitz, CEO of EPLAN and Cideon, introducing the press presentation in Hanover. “We combine AI with our knowledge of industry processes and standard engineering data and show you the tangible benefits this has for speeding up the entire process.”
That also engineers can be supported in their work with AI, from searching for information and data to improving their work on the computer, including software development, is no secret two years after the introduction of ChatGPT. But what Eplan showed this year in Hanover is not available with ChatGPT or any of the AI co-pilots that are now on the market for various purposes. This is because this special AI contains the specialist knowledge of the Eplan experts, combined with access to standardized enclosure engineering data.
What a machine manufacturer receives from a customer who wants to buy a new machine or system are technical documents and parts lists of the intended parts. With regard to the control cabinet these are primarily circuit diagrams for supplying the machine with power and control signals, and parts lists.
Sebastian Seitz, CEO Eplan and Cideon, explains the background and strategy behind the development of Eplan Copilot (photo Sendler)
With parts list and circuit diagram automatically to the control cabinet …
Developing the right control cabinet for this is no child’s play. At the heart of the work is the mounting plate, to which all components must be attached and wired, and an enclosure that is tailored to the specific content and conditions. In terms of its size, the installation space for the components and the additional space required for cooling, for example.
And yet, in a way, it is a routine activity. It is always almost the same problems that have to be solved, the same data sources that have to be searched, because nobody wants to build something new that the company has already done in a similar way. So what if the engineer could give his specific requirements to an AI that delivers the right cabinet and an immediately usable 3D mounting plate?
This is exactly what Eplan has done. Building on important prerequisites that hardly any other company has. With the Eplan Data Portal, there is now a huge library of around 2 million electrical engineering components, which are made available by around 500 manufacturers in addition to Eplan itself. Stored in an Eplan Data Standard, which is well on the way to becoming an industry standard. This data is publicly available and can therefore also be used for AI training and algorithms. The Eplan CAD system in turn supports the designer with a variety of intelligent functions for engineering mounting plates, control cabinets and cabling in 3D.
On this basis and with the help of the Microsoft Azure Open AI Service, the development team led by Marcus Reitz has developed the Eplan Copilot.
Marcus Reitz, Head of Data Science Services, demonstrating the automated mounting plate layout at Hanover Fair 2025 (photo Sendler)
Just three months after the project was launched, it was presented online to the press and visitors at the Hanover Fair.
The engineer uses a parts list as input for the Copilot and asks for any existing control cabinets that match.
After just a few seconds, two or three suitable models are displayed and offered for selection and further processing. The first step, which normally takes time and effort, has been automated.
... and to the mounting plate
With a further request, the user now asks the copilot to propose a layout for the mounting plate to be installed in the enclosure with all components, including cable ducts and top-hat rails.
And again, the result is available as a 3D model at the touch of a button, which would otherwise take days or weeks. The user can load it directly into an Eplan project and make final corrections and adjustments as required. According to Sebastian Seitz, the solution is not yet on the market. But the faces of the journalists attending the press presentation revealed that most of them assume that it will be ready in the near future.
In a video, Marcus Reitz showed another AI solution that was realized in close cooperation with Siemens and their Engineering Copilot. Some components in an Eplan project are exchanged for a design in the Siemens TIA Portal. And this is done automatically without manual conversion between the two underlying data formats. According to Siemens and Eplan, this is the beginning of a deeper integration of the two systems. It was agreed by Dr. Friedhelm Loh, CEO of the Friedhelm Loh Group, the parent company of Eplan, and Cedrik Neike, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries Software, at SPS in November 2024.
According to Sebastian Seitz, Eplan is working on an AI solution that is not perceived by the customer as a ‘black box’, but can justify its suggestions and decisions. No one doubts that the market is ready for this. The trade fair demonstration showed that Eplan can deliver.