In March, electrical connection specialist WAGO completed a four-year development of its new UK headquarters. The Customer Experience Centre is a vital part of the building, hosting customers for training as well as product specification. Demonstration equipment is integral to presenting operational products, and WAGO has partnered with Spelsberg to provide the industrial enclosures that house its products.
In March this year, the electrical connection manufacturer officially opened its 62,000 sq ft eco-friendly offices and warehouse in Rugby, where the German company has had a presence since 1990, benefitting from its central UK location. Previous visitors to Rugby will remember the 250-metre-high radio masts, finally removed in 2007, and it’s on this historic site that WAGO’s new UK facility is based. Rugby’s newly developed residential and commercial area of Houlton is named after the American town that received the world’s first transatlantic phone call, sent from Rugby Radio Station in 1927.
Following that technological achievement, it’s fitting that WAGO’s application to develop on the heralded land was granted as part of the company’s UK growth plans. The building hosts just over 100 people with capacity to double that figure, and the facility has been constructed to a BREEAM Excellent standard, using WAGO’s pioneering electrical connections throughout.
Customer Experience Centre
A crucial area of the new building is the Customer Experience Centre, hosting visits from WAGO’s partners, including electrical distributors across the UK, as well as customers in the process and power generation sectors, through to OEMs and system integrators in automation. In addition to providing training on its electrical connections, electronic interfaces, and automation technology, the facility is also playing an important role by assisting WAGO’s customers in product selection as well as offering proof of concept by showing products working for real.
In addition to WAGO’s new generation, compact electronic circuit breakers (ECB) and Pro 2 power supply unit (PSU), the demonstrator also includes a WAGO compact logic controller CC100. Via its integrated web server, the controller runs an interactive display. The demonstration also showcases WAGO’s timers for the control circuitry, as well as relay-controlled resistors that emulate an electrical load.
Demonstration unit
With the working demonstrator, customers can see how WAGO equipment safely manages the power supply in a highly efficient way and enables real time condition monitoring. For example, in the event of an overload, instead of the downtime associated with fuse replacement, the equipment just needs a reset to return it operational status, minimising downtime and cost.
