Rittal is one of the world’s leading system providers for control cabinet technology, power distribution systems, system air conditioning, IT infrastructure, software and service in switchgear construction. It is exemplary in the consistent implementation of Industry 4.0 approaches and, thanks to its IP strategy, has a central position in the control and switchgear construction 4.0 (case study Rittal). Customers in every industry, from mechanical and plant engineering to IT and telecoms, use Rittal system solutions.

Rittal is implementing its Industry 4.0 strategy for the Smart Factory through the collection, communication and analysis of data and through cloud-based data analytics. Rittal is now showing how the Industry 4.0 strategy is implemented in practice. In addition, new business model approaches for services related to the maintenance and repair of cooling devices are enabled through their digital transformation.

The original meaning of the company was to be the best provider of switch gear cabinet components. The actual physical product is the finished control cabinet to be used at the customer’s premises including all components. The new meaning for the customer is the most efficient, versatile and complete solution provider for the whole production system through the digital transformation. The aim of Rittal is to use the digitalization in order to achieve the greatest possible exclusivity for relevant customer benefits through value chain integration and provide customers with individual switch gear solutions that can be digitally configured by digital twins.

The tasks for the MIPLM students are:

1 . Describe the original meaning of the company and the products from the customer perspective.

2 . Describe a new meaning for the customer.

3 . Search for three patents which protect the new meaning and describe the role of the patents.

The answers were presented by:

Steffen Rutter, Anita Yaryna, Greta Zekiene, Claire Laurens de Lopez, Timofey Rubchenko, Nina Kolar, Ricardo Cali

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Thanks to Centre d’Etudes Internationales de la Propriété Intellectuelle – CEIPI. If you want to learn more: Follow us at IP Business Academy