We make transformers smart

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Dig­i­tal solu­tions are com­plex and can­not be cre­at­ed off the cuff. Their devel­op­ment requires exten­sive know-how, ties up resources, takes time and is cost­ly. Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen (MR) offers man­u­fac­tur­ers of pow­er trans­form­ers a clever short­cut on the way to becom­ing a solu­tion provider – ETOS® and the ISM® plat­form behind it – which pro­vide an open sys­tem solu­tion for the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of pow­er trans­form­ers.  

This sys­tem solu­tion con­sists of con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing func­tions as well as the con­nec­tion of pro­tec­tive devices, field devices and intel­li­gent sen­sors in a high­er-lev­el fleet mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem includ­ing any add-on com­mu­ni­ca­tion acces­sories. The sys­tem enables the eval­u­a­tion and record­ing of all rel­e­vant oper­at­ing data of a pow­er trans­former and thus helps to plan oper­a­tion and main­te­nance in a tar­get­ed man­ner. 

Tailor-made for every requirement 

Because for­ward-look­ing dig­i­tal­iza­tion solu­tions must be indi­vid­u­al­ly adapt­ed to prod­ucts and region­al mar­ket require­ments, MR offers a spe­cial ser­vice with its own coop­er­a­tion team. Sebas­t­ian Hilmer, Head of OEM Coop­er­a­tions at MR, explains: “ETOS® is not just a prod­uct. In the first step, we put togeth­er from a wide range of options the pack­ages that meet the require­ments of each coop­er­a­tion part­ner.

This enables cus­tomers to take the first big step towards posi­tion­ing them­selves on the mar­ket as providers of dig­i­tal­ized pow­er trans­form­ers with­out hav­ing to invest any devel­op­ment effort of their own.” Although the ISM® plat­form con­tains the bun­dled MR dig­i­ti­za­tion expe­ri­ence, it does not say so on the out­side and cus­tomers can pro­vide ETOS® with their own brand­ing. 

Pulling together in the same direction  

How­ev­er, using a company’s own label is by no means the only aspect that makes the coop­er­a­tion with MR unique for each cus­tomer. “In close col­lab­o­ra­tion with our coop­er­a­tion part­ners, we iden­ti­fy indi­vid­ual addi­tion­al func­tions that are nec­es­sary for their prod­ucts and mar­kets and add them to ‘their’ oper­at­ing sys­tem,” explains Sebas­t­ian Hilmer. “Our cus­tomers are strug­gling with high work­loads, and they often don’t have the time to devel­op their own dig­i­tal­iza­tion solu­tions although inno­v­a­tive solu­tions with indi­vid­ual func­tions are an excel­lent way to stand out from the com­pe­ti­tion and ulti­mate­ly increase sales,” explains Hilmer. “That’s why we see it as our job to make it as easy as pos­si­ble for our coop­er­a­tion part­ners to get start­ed with dig­i­tal­iza­tion.” 

To this end, the coop­er­a­tion team sup­ports cus­tomers far beyond their own hori­zons across the entire process chain. “We ana­lyze pur­chas­ing, design and engi­neer­ing in order to opti­mize these process­es and thus save costs,” says Hilmer, adding: “In the past, we opti­mized our process­es and our cus­tomers opti­mized theirs. Now we work on com­mon inter­faces to find the best solu­tions.“ 

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What our customers say about the partnership 

“By work­ing with Reinhausen’s ISM® plat­form and ETOS®, North­ern Trans­former is rapid­ly bring­ing to mar­ket a proven and reli­able solu­tion that will help our cus­tomers trans­form their pow­er trans­former mon­i­tor­ing to dig­i­tal solu­tions based on open stan­dards.” 

Pao­lo Mar­cel­li, Com­mer­cial Man­ag­er, North­ern Trans­former, Cana­da 

„We have cre­at­ed spe­cif­ic off-the-shelf pack­ages, which serve as guide­lines for stages of asset mon­i­tor­ing imple­men­ta­tion along with fur­ther oppor­tu­ni­ties for dig­i­tal­iza­tion. The col­lab­o­ra­tion between the GANZ and MR teams has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved the process of design­ing, order­ing and com­mis­sion­ing these sys­tems. These are impor­tant steps on the way to deliv­er­ing intel­li­gent solu­tions for our cus­tomers.“

Gabor Farkas, Brand Man­ag­er, GANZ Intel­li­gent Solu­tions, Hun­gary

“The dig­i­tal­iza­tion and inte­gra­tion of ser­vices is becom­ing ever more impor­tant in an increas­ing­ly net­worked world. Although the pow­er trans­former is a con­ven­tion­al machine, it is an impor­tant part of the increas­ing­ly dig­i­tal­ized ener­gy world. With suc­ces­sive pow­er gen­er­a­tion and smart grids, it is impor­tant to have the infor­ma­tion at hand to mon­i­tor the com­plex sys­tems and respond quick­ly to changes that occur dur­ing reg­u­lar oper­a­tion. We have inten­si­fied our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen in regard to trans­former mon­i­tor­ing solu­tions to pro­vide our cus­tomers with cus­tomized options for every appli­ca­tion.” 

Dr. Simon Ostrožnik, Head of Tech­ni­cal Office, Kolek­tor ETRA, Slove­nia

“We are one of the lead­ing sup­pli­ers of pow­er trans­form­ers in East­ern Europe. Our growth strat­e­gy is to expand our cus­tomer base across Europe and export coun­tries, cov­er­ing the prod­uct range from 20 MVA to 400 MVA. The abil­i­ty to offer dig­i­tal solu­tions for extend­ed appli­ca­tions will bring us advan­tages in this regard.” 

Dr. Michael Amon, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, ETD TRANSFORMATORY, Czech Repub­lic 

“Cre­at­ing a range of dig­i­tal solu­tions is one of the strate­gic goals we have set our­selves at RHONA, with dig­i­tal­iza­tion as the dri­ving force at the heart of the com­pa­ny. By cre­at­ing our own brand iden­ti­ty, we want to cre­ate greater cus­tomer prox­im­i­ty and accel­er­ate the dig­i­tal­iza­tion process.” 

Marce­lo Ulloa, Com­mer­cial Man­ag­er, RHONA, Chile