Introduction
Industry 4.0 has introduced new ways to monitor and manage industrial processes, with the aim of making them more efficient.
IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) aims to improve production processes by making use of IoT technology.
Human-machine interface (HMI), for example, is experiencing considerable development in IIoT systems, making human-machine interaction simpler, more immediate, and flexible.
Industrial HMI & IoT
We generally find Industrial HMIs as touchscreens that connect users to machines or devices. Operators employ HMIs on the factory floor to display data, record production times, track KPIs, and monitor machine status.
HMIs, as we know them, have experienced significant development in recent years thanks to new IoT technologies. The first interesting contribution of IoT is remote operation. Operators can now remotely interact with machines through devices such as tablets and smartphones.
For this, developers are focusing more on Web-based technologies (HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, React.js and React.native, …) by designing responsive HMIs and finding more efficient ways to show, manage and analyze information collected from devices.
The design of a smart HMI must meet some important requirements such as high reliability, availability, scalability, ease of upgrade, 24/7 operation, as well as compliance with UX standards.
HMIs with Cloud-based Systems
The second aspect is the integration of HMIs with cloud-based systems. This involves increased security and the ability to share collected data with multiple users quickly and easily, wherever they are.
Operators are always up to date with data gathered by other operators in other factory areas or at other locations, without the need for continuous alignments.
The increased demand for speech recognition technology involves HMIs making them more accessible and easier to activate functions and commands.
In HMIs, IoT meets AI and Machine Learning to automate monitoring procedures and process huge amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
Conclusion
The needs of Industry 4.0 are based on the collection and management of massive amounts of data in real time with the ability to processed and analyzed later. The primary goal is to improve productivity while minimizing costs, by comparing past performance of the same plant or multiple plants.
Today, thanks to IoT solutions, manufacturing plants can rely on scalable, more intuitive, high-performance and ubiquitous HMIs with extended connectivity, improving all aspects of plant monitoring and management.
