Today's technological era has led to the emergence of a new type of manager - professionals who combine engineering training with the talent and experience of a manager. This process began in the IT field, but it can now be found in more and more industries, becoming one of the trends of our time. Electric power engineering does not remain aloof from this trend either, and today we are going to be talking about the head of the Florida-based company TITR, Vadim Platonov, who, as a certified electrical engineer, has been managing the company for the production and installation of electrical cabinets for many years. One of his technological and managerial innovations, which became not only the hallmark of the company but also a breakthrough in the industry, was the unification of MCC and DDC panels.
MCC (Motor Control Center) is a power panel, while DDC (Direct Digital Center) is a control panel. DCC contains controllers (or expansion controller units) and distribution modules for a computer that collects signals and redirects them to the MCC cabinet in order to turn a particular load on or off. All together it is the most complex equipment for controlling motors, pumps, valves, or any other equipment. MCC was initially assembled and installed by a manufacturer, then the manufacturer's controller developers were responsible for setting up DDC. There were certain problems with this since each individual panel was made by a different company. At the same time, completely different people had to "marry" them at the site. And given the complex structure of these modules and the myriad of wires and controllers, providing dozens of signals passing from cabinet to cabinet, the work of installers could be compared with the work of either jewelers or sappers. In addition, there were often purely physical difficulties at the facilities: you had to lay a tray between the cabinets, find the appropriate wire, crimp it with end clamps, connect the signals, and label it correctly. All this required a significant cost in both time and material. And while their colleagues in the industry were working the old-fashioned way by messing with the phased connection of MCC/DDC, Vadim Platonov and his team came up with the idea to combine both panels in one cabinet.
Years ago, all panel manufacturers, in most cases, performed control functions at the facilities. That is to say, they carried out installation supervision, watching how electricians connected the equipment assembled for a particular project. It was then that young professionals, which Platonov headed, came up with a fresh idea - all necessary work can be done at the manufacturer's facility more qualitatively, reliably, and cheaply. Having developed the concept of a new project through brainstorming, they began to make a prototype. As a result, the team got two panels separated by each other either by a partition (if there is such a requirement) or simply visually. Both Platonov and the customers were extremely satisfied by the result: two modules came together in a single device, one panel is a power panel, the second one is a smart unit. Since MCC/DDC cabinets can reach impressive dimensions, the specialists decided to make and ship them in separate modules and to make assembly on the site - literally within a few minutes, using marked connectors for quick connection. This method developed by the Platonov's team allows to mount any number of panels on-site - doesn't matter if it is 6 or 10 units. This way, a customer gets a nice bonus: quality and reliability that provided not by the professional skills of the only installer connecting the cabinet, but by the technological process of the full cycle: from the manufacture of all parts at the industrially equipped facility to the certification of the finished product by the technical control department.
As a result of this development, the error rate in the MCC/DDC installation is very close to zero. The customer receives a fully finished device, in which it simply needs to be connected to the labeled connectors. The combination of MCC/DDC panels, on the one hand, has become the hallmark of the TITR company, while on the other, it has allowed the industry to take a significant leap forward not only in technological terms but also in business. Today, it is already difficult to imagine that just a couple of decades ago the process of connecting electrical cabinets on-site took much longer than it does now and cost customers very significant sums. Now all reputable European manufacturers act in this way. But oddly enough, this idea is barely used in the United States, making MCC/DDC connection one of the fields that Vadim Platonov and his team are actively working on in the American market right now.
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