Functional engineering at JEMA Energy with Eplan

To maintain its leading position and increase productivity, JEMA Energy needed to design every part of its systems with a high level of detail and, crucially, to be able to reuse these designs. The goal was clear: focus engineering time on real engineering work, not on “redrawing” similar projects that could not be reused later.

The core problem was low design reuse. From an electrical design perspective, almost every project was treated as a new development. While the overarching business processes were already standardised, this standardisation did not yet exist within the engineering and design process itself.

To address this, JEMA Energy needed an electrical CAD system that preserved component intelligence and could logically link pages and components. The intention was to build once and reuse many times, instead of reinventing the wheel for each project.

JEMA Energy had been using Eplan software since 2016, when it began a structured consulting programme to improve its processes. During this work, it became clear that Eplan Electric P8 already provided all the required tools in its standard functionality.

There were, however, some specific requirements that were not available “out of the box”. What might have become a constraint turned out to be straightforward to solve, because Eplan is highly customisable without the need for tailor-made programming. All adjustments are handled through parameterisation, which means the system can be configured and fine-tuned without constantly involving the Eplan team. With this approach, JEMA Energy can ensure that the software adapts to very specific requirements simply by adjusting parameters.

Cross-reference information was a particularly important topic for JEMA Energy. This was implemented with the support of Eplan consultants and is now maintained in-house.

During the decision-making process, several software options were evaluated that could potentially automate and improve specific areas JEMA Energy had identified as candidates for full or partial automation. In practice, only Eplan made it possible to achieve all of these improvement goals using standard, native software — without any custom development. Another decisive factor was the consulting services provided by Eplan. This support has evolved into an ongoing continuous-improvement process that simplifies and automates day-to-day engineering workflows.

In addition, JEMA Energy benefits from a support portal that provides fast answers to questions as they arise. Perhaps most importantly, once Eplan Electric P8 was in daily use, it quickly revealed additional improvement opportunities beyond the initial scope, thanks to the other modules available on the Eplan Platform.

The most critical integration at JEMA Energy is between Eplan and its ERP system. This ensures that the engineering platform has direct access to comprehensive product and article information. Electrical schematics and bills of materials (BOMs) are always aligned, because the BOM is generated directly from the schematic and transferred automatically into the ERP.

Eplan Electric P8 is a consistent, integrated and high-performance engineering system used to plan and design the electrical engineering of machines and plant systems. The software supports a wide variety of engineering methods, from traditional manual creation to standardised, template-based planning.

Once entered into the schematic, project data becomes the single source of truth for automatically generating complete machine and plant documentation.

In short, Eplan Electric P8 delivers far more than “just” drawing schematics and circuit diagrams – it is the backbone of JEMA Energy’s electrical engineering process.

With Eplan , JEMA Energy quickly unlocks the full potential of its engineering processes and significantly improves the quality of its electrical and fluid power documentation. Existing schematics are used to build a macro library, and Eplan then automatically generates complete schematics with a single mouse click based on defined configurations.

This approach allows companies of any size and in any industry to benefit from highly efficient, value-adding engineering methods – without long and complex implementation projects.

To implement the Eplan solutions, JEMA Energy initially launched a consulting project. The first step was to adapt the software to the existing way of working and then use this as a basis for moving towards improved methods and processes.

During the project, new working methods were introduced in parallel, as some techniques were straightforward to implement and there was no reason to postpone them. Once the initial adaptation phase was completed, JEMA Energy continued to engage Eplan consultants. To this day, they still make use of consulting services to refine and improve different parts of their processes.

Today, JEMA Energy has several engineers trained at different levels of the Eplan Platform. Over time, they have identified distinct user profiles: users who primarily consult documentation, users who design and modify schematics, and a group of key users who prepare the platform for engineering changes in a market that is evolving rapidly.

Whenever needed, JEMA Energy turns to Eplan for expert advice. This experience helps the company find robust, future-proof solutions to new engineering challenges.

JEMA Energy is finalising its ERP integration, which will accelerate the engineering–purchasing workflow. The company also plans to deepen its collaboration with external manufacturing partners, such as cable-harness suppliers.

Staying current with the latest Eplan version, investing in regular methodology refresher courses and maintaining a continuous improvement mindset all contribute to sustained efficiency. The world evolves – and JEMA Energy evolves with it.

Day by day, project by project, new process requirements are identified and either improved or automated. A clear example is the new charging range called Sigma, a fully configurable family of chargers tailored to the needs of each customer.

Once the range and its options were defined, JEMA Energy, together with Eplan consultants, created a base schematic project containing every technical detail. This base project is continuously updated as the product evolves. With this project as a template and the Eplan configurator on top, JEMA Energy quickly generates the schematics and all documentation required for manufacturing a charger configured to the customer’s specific needs.

The result is a customised product for each customer, while internally maintaining full standardisation and ensuring every detail along the series-assembly chain is controlled and consistent.

Before working with Eplan, time savings from automation were only roughly estimated, and progress was approximated at project level – not only in terms of time, but also in documentation quality. Documentation often consisted of basic symbols and lacked depth for downstream functions.

Today, the documentation generated with Eplan is far more complete and provides the information required by different departments. By including structured article data, the documentation can be used directly by purchasing to trigger or plan orders.

Once Eplan was adopted, JEMA Energy realised there were additional benefits they had not initially anticipated, enabled by the new working methodology. The return on investment was achieved quickly.

As the company grew and the market became more demanding in terms of deadlines and technical complexity, it became essential to provide the right information to the right person at the right time. This is only possible with an end-to-end view of the engineering process. In this respect, Eplan has helped to reveal bottlenecks and reduce or eliminate them.

The overall experience has been very positive. JEMA Energy now has a well-organised design team, with clearly defined responsibilities inside and outside the Eplan Platform. Toolbars and automated workflows allow day-to-day users to work with the platform more intuitively and in a way that fits their tasks. Not every user has to be an Eplan expert to achieve high-quality results.

The key-user team at JEMA Energy deploys new processes on the platform in the form of automated functions and buttons once they are defined. They train users by giving them exactly the information they need, keeping the usage simple, intuitive and efficient.

The main advantage of working with Eplan is not only speed. In many cases, actions that previously took several hours are now executed with a single click – while recognising that preparation by key users is an important part of that efficiency. For JEMA Energy, the most important factors are the reliability and quality of its documentation. There is confidence that when established processes (templates, configurators, automated functions, etc.) are used, the information generated by day-to-day users is correct. This is what they value most about the platform, especially as a company with an international footprint.