With Eplan, KraftPowercon Sweden has improved quality while cutting design times

“In addition to ensuring that the solutions are consistent regardless of the designer, we can predefine many project parameters in a circuit, and these changes are then automatically applied to all circuits and on all sheets. We’ve also been able to create a seamless internal workflow, using a questionnaire that provides all the information we need from the customer—then we simply enter it into eBuild,” says Simon Widh.

A leader in power conversion and uninterruptible power

KraftPowercon is a Swedish-Indian company that offers innovative and reliable power conversion solutions across a range of sectors. The company originated from the battery manufacturer Tudor and currently has manufacturing facilities in Sweden, India, and Shanghai, as well as sales offices worldwide. In Sweden, operations focus on motor drives for uninterruptible power, and the Växjö site handles both design and production for several major customers.

In 2016, KraftPowercon took the first step toward streamlining the design process by starting to work with Eplan’s software.

“We went from managing schematics, layouts, and bill of materials separately—which involved a lot of manual work—to having an unified system where all components are part of the same project. Even at that early stage, we saw improvements in both quality and efficiency, even though we were primarily using Eplan’s solution as a drafting tool,” explains Simon Widh.

Automatic configuration

With the introduction of eBuild in 2024, KraftPowercon took a major step toward working in a more modular and structured way by creating a configurator that automatically generates all the documentation needed for the design, such as circuit diagrams, cabling reports, and even layouts.

In addition to speeding up the design process, this new way of working ensures that solutions are consistent regardless of the designer and avoids the risks associated with basing designs on old projects. 

“When a customer ordered a product similar to a previous order, it was common practice to copy the old project and use it as a starting point. But there’s always a risk that the designer might overlook a minor change,” says Simon Widh.

Now that KraftPowercon’s designers use automatic project generation, they always create a new project because it’s so fast. 

“We’re deeply integrated into our customers’ products and need to understand their requirements. So we create highly customized solutions,” says Simon. He also continues to add more functionality on an ongoing basis: “We’re constantly working to eliminate more manual steps by adding new parameters. We’re trying to minimize manual work so that it’s as close to zero as possible.”

Higher quality and significant time savings are the key benefits

For Simon and Magnus, the most important benefit is the improved quality, primarily because the projects now turn out the same regardless of the designer, since everyone uses the configurator. Another improvement in quality is that the number of changes has decreased.

“In the past, changes could occur quite late in the project. With the new workflow, we catch changes and feedback much earlier. With Eplan’s solution, we can then incorporate them into the product’s standard circuits,” explains Simon.

In terms of time savings, Magnus Persson estimates that design time has been cut in half.

“The time we save gives us a slightly less hectic day-to-day routine, so we can focus on long-term improvement measures.” 

Simon and Magnus were also surprised by the simplicity of automatic project generation, which allowed them to get started quickly. “I thought there would be a fairly high learning curve before we could benefit from the tool, but it was surprisingly quick to get the hang of it,” says Simon.

Next step—Transition to 3D and integration into production

The next development step KraftPowercon is considering is transitioning to 3D configuration, which is valuable for ensuring that all circuits and components fit.

They also aim to derive greater value from automatic project generation during the production phase.

“If we can produce more pre-drilled sheets and pre-printed labels, the workers won’t have to sit there measuring and drilling—they’ll just be able to screw the parts in place,” concludes Magnus.