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Automation is a target that many in the industrial sector are chasing. However, converting existing facilities into smart facilities can be a costly and time-consuming undertaking. For a company to implement smart manufacturing, its machinery and equipment must be able to communicate with each other and across a network.

Climate control is critical to automated systems. Excessive heat and fluctuating temperatures can ruin electronics, impairing their operations and lowering the service life of electrical equipment. Even just a 5–10degree increase in the operating temperature of a device over an extended period of time can affect its speed and reliability, with solid–state devices starting to break down and fail at temperatures exceeding 120°F.

Beyond the basic considerations that are part of an end user’s enclosure selection process for their IT deployment – such as dimensions, weight, and color/finish – are important factors that contribute to the enclosure’s long-term value and performance. If you’re in the market for IT enclosures and want to be confident that you’re choosing the best for your needs – today’s and those you’ll have in the future – you need to first evaluate a manufacturers’ ability to demonstrate their expertise in these areas:

Ask any data center facility manager what keeps them up at night, and the answer is usually the same: fear of downtime. That’s because with each minute of data center downtime, the risk of serious loss increases. Around a third of all reported outages cost more than $250,000, with many exceeding $1 million. The good news? An Uptime Institute report shows that most IT service disruptions are preventable, with 80% of respondents admitting that their most recent outage could have been avoided.

In recognition of Women’s History Month, Rittal recognizes their women in manufacturing. The following is their first installment of Rittal’s “We are Rittal!” mini-series, based off their We are #RittalStrong, #RittalResilient, #RittalWomen campaign. Diane Rudolph joined Rittal 22 years ago as a Safety & Environmental Engineer. In her time she has held various roles within the organization; her current role is Director of Material Services.

Data centers are some of the most energy-intensive of all building types, gobbling up 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of the typical commercial office building, according to energy.gov. Combined, data centers represent approximately 2% of total U.S. electricity use. Much of that 2% is dedicated to keeping servers from overheating.

Rittal is one of the first industrial players to receive a 5G frequency allocation. Before the end of the year, a private 5G mobile communications network will be installed in the new Haiger plant. The first pilot projects, for example in production monitoring and analysis, have already been defined.

There are relatively simple server enclosure cooling needs…and then there’s the challenge posed by Arizona State University’s (ASU) Compact X-ray Free Electron Laser (CXFEL). For the best cooling solution to control the climate around the world’s first CXFEL’s high-density servers, ASU chose to partner with Rittal.

Tri Tech Automation, an automation partner with nearly 75 years of experience serving the engineering needs of American manufacturers, utilized a Rittal modular solution to overcome challenges with a motor control center application for a customer in the biofuels industry.

According to Forbes, U.S. data centers use more than 90 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, requiring roughly 34 giant (500-megawatt) coal-powered plants. Global data centers use about 40% more than the entire United Kingdom. That’s a lot of electricity, and a lot of heat being generated in the process. Cooling is a critical component of the data center ecosystem – and a major line item in a data center’s budget. In fact, as much as 40% of all energy used in some data centers goes directly to cooling.

As your engineering team researches enclosure options, a primary consideration should be labor costs for performing basic tasks, including mounting panel installation, door reversal, lock replacement or in-cabinet maintenance. Safety is another consideration. Due to the weight of the enclosure, many maintenance crews require heavy equipment like forklifts or cranes to move and install enclosures. It’s important to note that choosing between unibody or modular enclosure designs greatly impacts the resources needed to perform and support these tasks.