The electrical industry: towards the future!

The digital transformation is a development that doesn’t stop for crafts and trades, and the electrical industry is no exception. Our EuroSkills 2020 sponsors and electrical installation professionals Hager and Sonepar have already adapted in different ways to the ongoing digital transformation and the corresponding needs of their customers, the tradespeople.

This was among the aspects that were impressively demonstrated by both companies at the “Power Days” event in mid-March. The electrical wholesaler Sonepar, for example, invited visitors to take an exciting glimpse into the future in the “Sonepar InnovationLab”. The show truck, filled with a wealth of high-tech equipment, presents innovative technologies and solutions by Sonepar, all with the slogan “Electrify your Future”. It is designed as a mobile platform so that people can touch and experience the range of electronic products and services at first hand. What’s so smart about the Smart Home? What is “industry 4.0” all about? How can you make use of these promising developments for your own business? You can find answers to these questions and many more in the innovatively designed Sonepar show truck, for example by trying out the interactive cinema and the interactive touchscreen tables.

The Hager company has also come up with a number of innovative solutions for tradespeople – and displayed them at the Power Days. One of the highlights presented was the live demonstration of how an AFDD arc fault detection device protects against serial or parallel arc faults. Such faults are caused by a voltage flashover in which the resulting electrical energy heats up the point where the defect occurred. If the energy level is 450 joules or higher, this can cause cables to accidentally ignite and may even result in buildings catching fire. The main function of an AFDD is to prevent fires caused by electric arcs. Another forward-looking topic Hager deals with is Smart Homes: the company presented its own new generation of intelligent home control. This product combines all smart home functions in an intuitive user interface with visualisation in KNX standard, and integrates the KNX system into the Internet of Things using an integrated IoT controller.

Experience digital transformation at close quarters: the latest technology is found inside the Sonepar InnovationLab.

With all these developments, it soon becomes evident that digital transformation not only impacts on supply chains and goes well beyond the optimisation of manufacturing technologies, but also serves to fulfil customer needs more effectively. According to a study conducted by the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (ZVEI) in 2017, the electrical industry is one of the leading sectors when it comes to advancing the digital transformation. This is due primarily to its high level of innovation capacity. No other industry spurs innovation on so vigorously, especially in the German-speaking countries. This has ultimately also had an impact on the skilled workers themselves, because they are the ones who must work with the new products. And this makes it all the more important to gain specialist knowledge and to move digital expertise more firmly into focus, even within the educational context, and also to offer continuous advancement at work through on-the-job training.