Posted in | News | Display

AIS Introduces Custom, Smart HMI Touch Panels Design for Manufacturability Services

Reviewed

Jul 16 2014

American Industrial Systems, Inc. (AIS), an open platform, PC-based Human Machine Interface (HMI), Touch Panel PC, Industrial PC (IPC) manufacturer and developer of control and monitoring solutions, announces their new “Custom, Smart HMI Touch Panels Design for Manufacturability Services for OEM customers serving industrial and commercial automation industries and markets”.

To fully support this effort, the company also provides a comprehensive suite of customized in-house services for engineering, design, manufacturing, electrical, mechanical, quality control, standards testing, logistics and supply chain management, and custom services and product support.

Custom Design Touch Panel PC, Customized OEM And ODM HMI Touch Panel, Design To Order HMI, Built To Order HMI (Photo: Business Wire)

AIS’s HMI Design & Manufacturing Expertise Eliminates Bottlenecks in the New Product Development Process for Industrial & Commercial Automation OEMs

For ODM/OEM control systems and equipment manufacturers, accelerating time to market for new products and solutions are strategic imperative for success. Often the HMI design and development process necessary for achieving this objective is one of the most difficult tasks for OEMs/ODMs. The challenge exists in the numerous areas of HMI competencies, expertise and capabilities required to develop a solution that is powerful, functional and affordable, and yet still meets all of their specific machine’s criteria. AIS has over two decades of experience developing new control, monitoring and visualization technologies that provide flexibility for simple and easy HMI implementation; modularity for IT integration and networking; scalable systems that deliver reliability for high availability, uptime and lower maintenance; and help achieve optimal cost efficiency, higher performance and lower TCO.

AIS Helps ODMs/OEMs of Automation Equipment Meet Challenging Environmental, Regulatory Compliance & Standards Testing

AIS’s open platform HMIs and industrial touch-panels development teams focus on meeting changing standards, certifications & compliance requirements. AIS realizes with increasing product liabilities, certifications testing and compliance requirements for end-users, OEM customers will continue to more and more demand open platform HMI solutions that deliver higher quality, higher availability, higher reliability, more flexibility, and above all else, higher operator and equipment safety. AIS tests and meets all of these certifications and more:

UL, cUL and IECEE CB Listed to Safety Standards and Certifications for Information & Communication Technology Equipment
UL, cUL and IECEE CB Listed to Safety Standards and Certifications for Measurement, Control, and Laboratory Electrical Equipment

HMIs are also installed in application areas with challenging environmental including conditions with extreme heat, cold, wetness and/or vibration. For the Oil & Gas industry, special design considerations must be given to hazardous areas which may contain dangerous explosive or flammable environments. Furthermore, special certifications, standards testing and safety approvals are required to be even considered for these unique and very difficult application environments. AIS offers an extensive line of intrinsically safe HMIs for hazardous areas specifically designed for installation in Oil & Gas, Chemical and Power Plants.

AIS offers Non-Incendive (NI), Intrinsically Safe (IS), and Explosion Proof panel PCs, thin clients, and industrial monitors with HMI open platforms that are certified to meet NEC/CEC Class/Division, ATEX Directive 94/9/EC, and IECEx Zone standards for increased safety in industrial HMI touch screen PCs in Division 2 and Zone 2 operator control and monitoring applications. Santiago Consunji, Sales & Business Development Manager of AIS adds, “Our family of touch panel PCs are so extensive that we meet almost every conceivable application requirement – from OEM machines for indoor industrial manufacturing to Hazardous areas and/or applications requiring the most demanding MES, SCADA, ERP and networking capabilities.”

ODMs/OEMs Can Focus on Core Competencies and Let AIS Completely Engineer Scalable, HMI Solutions for their Machines

While price is always an important consideration, automation equipment OEMs have to offer their customers value beyond just this factor, by building integrated systems with different levels of automation and complexity, as well as provide and achieve different support, cost and compliance requirements. In addition, they must develop solutions for their customers that offer unique features and capabilities to differentiate themselves from their competition. To help OEMs succeed in this challenging business environment, AIS offers a full range of solutions on a scalable basis, as well as delivers the right balance of products, expertise and global aftermarket support.

Customized, Smart HMI Solutions for ODMs/OEMs Total Success & Satisfaction

Starting with their successful and proven standard family of panel PCs and Box PCs as the basis for custom design solutions, they then create HMI solutions that are tailored precisely to the ODM’s/OEM’s requirements. Their custom portfolio covers hardware, software, turnkey services as well as support and logistics. The benefits of using AIS as your Custom, Smart HMI development resource are threefold.

Time & Cost Savings: AIS has decades of experience, technology deployment and systems in place to develop a superior custom HMI solution quickly.
Higher Profitability: Focusing your capital, time and resources on their core competencies will help you increase efficiency and productivity.
Increased Competitive Edge: The more advanced and tuned your HMI solution is to the specific application, the more your machines will stand out for their superior performance and capabilities.

AIS Customized, Smart HMI Solutions Overview

Customized HMI products are developed in various stages in accordance with their design for manufacturability, electrical, mechanical, testing and quality standards. Only once a customized solution passes rigorous certification and standards testing, it then proceeds into final production. The two key areas of AIS’s customized, smart HMI program include:

Customized Hardware:

Inscription or printed logo for branding
Custom color design of enclosure
Optimization of the computer configuration
Optimal selection of the required components
Installation of the hardware you specified

Customized Software:

Individually installed and tested on each HMI system
Generation of operating systems
Integration and installation of driver software and image storage

Turnkey Products:

AIS custom HMI products are designed, manufactured, tested and supplied as complete operator interface stations and are installed and tested with the specified software tools:

Optimized HMI operator station: ergonomic, functional, certified and tested
Optimal mechanical installation of the devices with defined high degree of protection
Variable mounting options
Vibration-tested and shock-tested
Packaged for safe transport
Tested heat balance with passive cooling and with specified ambient temperature
Customer-specific software suite with electronic software release management

Customized Service & Support

Although their smart HMI solutions are engineered with great accuracy, precision and quality, AIS is committed to go the extra mile in delivering top quality effort and achieving total customer satisfaction.

Pre-sales and after-sales support
System test of hardware and software
Certification and approval of hardware and software
Customized project monitoring
Individual repair concepts

Customized Logistics

AIS’s HMIs are highly reliable and dependable systems. Their customized logistics services further ensure their customized solutions are online and available to maintain the highest levels of productivity and efficiency for your operation.