R&D Specialties
R&D Specialties, a UL-certified panel builder, has increased productivity by 40% by adopting Eplan and Rittal's digital twin solution, which removes manual handoff steps between design and production
R&D Specialties, a company that serves the oil and gas industry in Odessa, Texas, was facing a growth ceiling due to the lack of skilled labor. According to Brad Howell, the company's leader, the biggest bottleneck was the gap between what the team designed and what they could physically build. This gap is a common problem in manufacturing, where information can get lost in translation at every step, from design to sourcing to fabrication to wiring.
The Cost of Inefficiency
The gap between design and production can lead to significant costs, including supplier escalations, BOM rework, and missed deadlines. These costs can hide in plain sight, but they ultimately show up in lower margins and missed deadlines. According to the source, this gap is not a technical failure, but rather a failure of the handoff between different departments.
Closing the Gap
Eplan and Rittal's solution is to replace the manual translation step with a shared thread, creating a digital twin that carries a project from initial layout through electrical design, mechanical coordination, component sourcing, systems programming, and wiring into long-term lifecycle management. This digital twin is a single source of truth, rather than multiple translations across different teams. Rittal's hardware layer makes this data buildable, with modular industrial enclosures, thermal management, and power distribution systems built into Eplan's engineering library.
Results
R&D Specialties is a proof of concept for the effectiveness of Eplan and Rittal's solution. After adopting the solution, the company was able to increase productivity by 40% in under a year, without hiring additional skilled labor. The work that used to require 14 people now takes eight, and high-value operations that used to require long-held institutional knowledge now run on data that travels with the project. The company's growth is no longer gated by headcount, and they are able to take on more projects without increasing their workforce.
The following table shows the productivity gain achieved by R&D Specialties:
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Number of people required | 14 | 8 |
| Productivity gain | - | 40% |
| Throughput | - | Increased |
The source, Manufacturing Dive, reports that Eplan and Rittal's solution is a key factor in R&D Specialties' increased productivity and growth. By removing the manual handoff steps and creating a digital twin, the company is able to streamline their design and production process, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. The Rittal Application Center in Houston is a resource for companies looking to adopt this solution and map their own path from design to delivery.
