Crash tested touch panel computers
June 2005
Industrial Computer Hardware
Conferences & Events
While it makes a great deal of sense to select the right tool for the job, when it comes to ruggedised computers for hazardous process control environments, it seems that Futuristix will go the extra mile to ensure that the very computers you select live up to the sales blurb.
A leading SA smelter selected eight Wonderware Touch Panel computers for a new scada installation in its reduction works that would also provide access to MES (manufacturing execution system) information under difficult environmental conditions.
Reconciling production schedules with shop floor performance is the realtime environment of MES but the 'shop floor' is, in this case, a setting that is hazardous to technology because it is electrically noisy as well as extremely hot.
'We operate in a very robust environment of extreme temperatures and intense magnetic fields,' says a spokesperson for the company, 'and it made sense to choose HMI/scada workstations designed to cope with these types of challenges.
Wonderware's touch panel computers have achieved some of the most stringent certifications in the industry and come pre-configured with Windows XP and InTouch 9.0. The touch panel computer's display has been designed for use in harsh industrial environments and offers an open, modular design for flexibility and versatility. These pre-packaged solutions are becoming increasingly popular with the SA automation industry community.
Crash
Most products are usually tested to check if they perform according to their specifications, but in this case, these touch panel computers were subjected to something rather different. On its way from Johannesburg, the truck delivering the computers to the smelter went out of control and rolled down a mountainside, throwing the computers 150 metres from the truck. The only damage was one loose connection on one unit.
"Although we pride ourselves on the robustness of these products, it is not customary for us to subject them to this kind of drop test on delivery,' says Tania Stoltz, internal sales administrator at Futuristix, principal SA distributor for the Wonderware range of industrial automation and MES solutions and a member of the EOH group of companies. 'But if customers insist ...'
(Although the units where working they were replaced in terms of the two-year warranty in order to reduce any risk of failure on site.)
For more information contact Justin Tweedie, Futuristix, 011 723 9900, [email protected], www.futuristix.co.za
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