B2B Portal Electronics

Plant Engineering stands for a certain technology implementation in the manufacturing industry. A plant engineering department, also sometimes called maintenance engineering and reliability engineering, has the responsibility to design and build plants, to implement effective maintenance techniques and to design and change a plant’s equipment to improve its reliability, safety, productivity and overall performance. Quite often, plant engineers deal with upcoming problems, investigate existing production processes and even correct certain production flows.  

When designing a plant for the automotive, electronics, chemical, pharmaceutical or the oil & gas industry several assembly lines with robotics and sensor technology, plant engineers and managers assign certain tasks, which were in former times fulfilled by humans, to computers and machine tools. Engineering companies have faced a dynamic and growing market in the past years. The components used in the technical engineering of plants have become more and more sophisticated and complex. Although high technology, automation and programmable components, such as semiconductors, have often replaced devices, such as relays, basic hydraulic and electromechanical principles are still the same.

 

Although high-tech appliances simplify working in the manufacturing industry and decrease maintenance and downtimes, electrical engineering managers still work every day on their minimisation. This work is needed when a manufacturing company wants to stay competitive and increase its global position.

 

Especially in the electronics sector, both the B2B as well as the end consumer sectors, have been remarkable changes in the last years that also effect plant engineering projects. Product innovation cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Progress in high-tech devices, such as semiconductors, creates innovations, and consumer behaviour is driven by the demand for cost-effective, intelligent electronics which dispose of a high level of automation and are easy to use. Many consumer electronics have planned obsolescence, as follow-up models are designed and marketed quickly. These trends force electronics engineering and manufacturing companies to deal with the upcoming challenge of electronic waste, so called E-waste. Plant engineering found a new business activity in designing and building, for example, recycling systems which have the task to dismantle electronics such as computers, monitors or dvd players. E-waste disposal systems and services as well as recycling methods are more and more important for the industry, too, as certain components consist of toxic or not biodegradable ingredients. Waste management and recycling is also vital in plants which manufacture semiconductors. Production processes have to be designed to reduce and recycle toxic substances such as arsenic.