Overview

• As panel shops move from traditional cabling to busbar, they are faced with an important decision: manual busbar modification or automated busbar modification?
• Panel shops that choose automated busbar modification are faced with an additional decision: outsourced or in-house?
• Automated busbar modification is faster, less error-prone, more precise, less wasteful, and offers a variety of other benefits.
• Rittal Automation Systems machinery for busbar modification is helping panel shops to bring automated modification in-house so they can reap these benefits.

The move away from traditional cabling and toward busbar continues, and many panel shops I’ve talked to lately are facing challenges with keeping up with demand. Their customers increasingly want copper busbar, and it’s no surprise. For high-amperage systems, such as those above 1000A, they can’t use cables because they’ll melt. Copper is a great conductor of electricity that handles heat well and helps suppliers in fields like energy & power meet safety standards like UL 891.

In addition to greater demand for busbar from the energy & power sector, panel shops are seeing increasing demand from data centers, where busbar is prized because of its space-saving efficiency, flexibility, and reliability. IT applications are only expected to grow with the advancement of AI, with its massive computing and data storage needs.

Rittal is helping panel shops all over the U.S. make the transition to busbar and capitalize on this demand. From mom-and-pop shops to huge operations, I work with Rittal customers to provide a range of busbar solutions. Sometimes this involves completing busbar modification jobs for customers at the Rittal Application Center (RAC) in Houston, Texas. Lately, though, I’ve had several customers invest in automated busbar modification machinery of their own. Here’s why.

Manual vs. automated busbar modification options

The panel shops I work with are usually producing modified busbar in one of two ways: they are manually modifying it themselves using hand tools or they are outsourcing modification to a facility like the RAC.

Shops are incentivized to move from manual modification to automated modification when they realize that automated modification is:

• Faster: What might take an operator 15 minutes takes machinery 30 seconds.
• Less error-prone: Humans make mistakes, but mistakes with busbar are expensive because the price of copper is very high.
• More precise: Machinery can more easily achieve the strict tolerances required for busbar modification.
• Less wasteful: Because they are more precise and make fewer mistakes, machines produce less scrap — again important due to the high price of copper.
• Less reliant on individual operators’ expertise: Manual modification means shops come to depend on specific operators, and operator departures can create problematic knowledge gaps. In a world where shops are competing for skilled labor, automation can help create a centralized knowledge base.

Automated modification is the obvious winner, but outsourcing busbar modification has its pros and cons. The RAC does a fantastic job producing custom modified busbar in as little as a few days, and Rittal provides a turnkey solution that allows customers to buy cabinets and busbar together. There are cases, however, where it is more cost-efficient for growing panel shops or those with very large orders to invest in in-house automation equipment. Plus, with their own machines, shops are able to better control busbar modification lead times — a big pro for many of the shops I work with.

CMA/Flodyne/Hydradyne is an authorized  Rittal distributor in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Northern Indiana.

In addition to distribution, we design and fabricate complete engineered systems, including hydraulic power units, electrical control panels, pneumatic panels & aluminum framing. Our advanced components and system solutions are found in a wide variety of industrial applications such as wind energy, solar energy, process control and more.