Posts Tagged ‘Panel Production’

Wired for More: How Egan’s Panel Shop Powers Possibility

Thursday, July 10th, 2025

From supporting local machine builders to taking on massive, fast-tracked national projects, Egan Company’s UL 508A Panel Shop is proving there’s more to control panels than meets the eye. Under the leadership of Kevin Bodem, the Panel Shop team is building more than custom control panels—they’re building smarter systems, stronger relationships, and scalable solutions for customers across industries.

Designed, Built, and Delivered

With a team capable of full-service design and fabrication, Egan’s panel group can handle it all—designing and building panels from scratch, fabricating to customer specs, or providing Design/Assist support. “One-third of what we do is customer-designed builds, one-third is full Egan design, and the other third is high-volume, repeat production work,” said Bodem. 

These control panels take many forms—motor control, power distribution, PLC, and more—and are customized to meet the specific safety, functionality, and installation needs of each project. Regardless of application, every panel is built to UL 508A standards, ensuring quality and compliance.

“UL 508A means the panels meet a nationally recognized safety standard,” Bodem explained. “It’s not just about passing inspection—it’s about knowing the product will operate safely in the field.”

Tackling Complexity with Agility
While most builds wrap up in a matter of days, some projects push the limits of what’s possible. A recent project for a long-time partner required hundreds of panels—Egan’s largest panel project to date—and came with tight timelines, post-pandemic supply chain hurdles, and an evolving scope. “It was a year-and-a-half effort from PO to final shipment,” said Bodem. “It took creativity with scheduling, manpower, and sourcing, but we worked closely with the customer and delivered on every front.”

Egan’s flexibility is one reason customers keep coming back. “We’re not just building panels—we’re offering solutions. We can design, fabricate, install, program, and support the entire system. A lot of people don’t realize that until they walk through our building.”

Tools, Tech, and Transformation
Automation continues to play a growing role in Egan’s production process. The shop features automated wire processing and enclosure machining, supported by an industrial engineering team dedicated to process improvement and advancing automation development. This team also serves as Egan’s quality group, ensuring consistent and high-performing results across all projects.

Beyond technology, Egan’s people remain the foundation of the shop’s success. Their expertise drives continuous improvement, from thorough equipment evaluations to collaborative engineering. Robust quality assurance processes, including inspections, and testing help deliver dependable products while identifying opportunities to enhance workflows. Together, these practices ensure each project meets the highest standards and supports customers with solutions built on experience, innovation, and precision.

Support Beyond the Shop Floor
Panel support doesn’t end when a product leaves the shop. “We’re always available when customers call,” said Bodem. “If something goes wrong, we stand behind it. That’s just who we are.” And with Egan’s service team and electricians located across the region, issues are resolved quickly. For OEM partners, Egan acts as a true extension of their operation, often supporting them through multiple product evolutions.

Industries Served—and Miles of Wire Run
Egan’s control panels serve a wide range of sectors, including food and beverage, data centers, packaging, organics recycling, and more. The team works closely with engineers at customer sites to ensure every need is accounted for and every risk is minimized before a panel is powered on.

This year, the shop is on track to produce about 5,000 panels—breaking last year’s record of 4,300 panels. 

Powering More Possibility
Whether it’s a one-off build or an enterprise-scale rollout, the Panel Shop team ensures each project reflects Egan’s promise: to be there when it matters and deliver smarter, safer systems that stand the test of time. “We’re not just a Panel Shop,” said Bodem. “We’re a systems integrator, an electrical contractor, and a solutions partner—all in one.”

Why is UL 508A Certification Important?

Wednesday, March 17th, 2021

Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is the largest and best known independent, not-for-profit laboratory in the world that conducts safety and quality testing on a wide range of products. UL is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as an audited designator that can designate its standards as American National Standards.

UL 508A panel fabrication
Panel fabrication in Egan’s UL 508A Panel Shop

As the standard for industrial control panels, UL 508A certification demonstrates compliance to national safety standards – this certification ensures the proper design, assembly and wiring methods of components within the control panel. Having the UL 508A mark indicates that all requirements have been met and that the industrial control panel manufacturing facility is subject to inspection at any point to certify that standards (including the National Electric Code & NFPA 79) are being upheld. Electrical inspectors look for this mark as evidence of third-party certification.

For instance, at Egan Company, safety is our number one priority, and we are proud to carry several UL certifications. Our UL 508A Panel Shop designs and builds custom, industrial control panels for customers who depend on quality and system design expertise. With precision assembly, panels of all shapes and sizes come to life under UL code. Customers who rely on panels built at Egan include food & beverage producers, concrete producers, and many other industrial product manufacturers.

For customers, having this UL 508A certification means that Egan is furthering our promise to provide safe products.

Egan’s Panel Shop highlights:

  • 3 separate panel shops under 1 roof totaling 21,000 square-feet of manufacturing space
  • Steinhauer ModCenter – automated hole/cutout machine for enclosures
  • Wire processing
  • Label manufacturing
  • OEM panel manufacturing
  • Custom-engineered panel manufacturing
  • 5S + Safety methodology
  • Certifications – UL 508A, UL 698A, CUL, ETL

Faster, Safer, More Accurate Panel Production

Wednesday, May 17th, 2017

In an increasingly automated world, the construction industry has stayed relatively manual. Machines simply can’t replicate the level of precision and technique required to install building systems; however, Egan Company’s U.L. 508A Panel Shop has found one way to use automation to its advantage.

Precision, speed, and safety are the cornerstones of any successful shop. Whether for an in-house job or a customer, the goal is to deliver a product quickly and correctly – the first time. And that’s why our panel shop implemented the Steinhauer ModCenter, an automated modification tool that provides fast, clean cut holes in each control panel.

Shop professionals previously measured, drew, and cut enclosures by hand – taking up to four hours per panel. Although this is a time honored way of providing a quality panel, it is not efficient and leaves room for human error or injury.

By allowing for multiple clean cut outs and back panel drilling/tapping tasks to be completed all at once, the machine improves the overall quality of each control panel.

Egan’s Panel Shop wiremen program the Steinhauer ModCenter to cut each panel per customer specifications. By eliminating the need for wiremen to manually measure, drill, tap, and process, the time for each panel is reduced to about 30 minutes – 87.5% less than if done manually.

This machine frees up a lot of time for our wiremen to work on other aspects of our projects, and get panels out the door much quicker. We estimate it does the work of nearly two people.

-Tim Blair, Egan Panel Shop Manager

Once specifications are programmed, it can be saved as a template for future use – making repeat orders or modification of standard equipment even faster.  Delays and waste are greatly reduced, and shop personnel are less likely to be injured during the drilling and milling process.

Watch the Steinhauer in Action: bit.ly/EganSteinhauer

“This tool enhances Egan’s already excellent safety program, by reducing the risk associated with cutting and drilling into a panel with power tools,” said Jeff Hawthorne, Egan Company Senior Vice President.  “We appreciate the efficiency of this machine, but we appreciate the increased safety it provides the shop even more.”

With this great new addition to the panel shop, Egan is now able to be more responsive to customer’s needs and produce more consistent products with a promotion of greater safety.