One of the more time-consuming tasks of the factory control engineer is the installation, configuration and management of the automation and control software. The more time spent on such maintenance tasks, the less time available to perform duties that can improve factory productivity and efficiency. This problem is sometimes compounded by incompatibility between hardware and software — common in the industrial world — where reliance on proprietary hardware systems produces an unwieldy mix of drivers, operating systems, and platform configurations. Even two different hardware products from the same vendor may use different platform specs. With a paucity of control engineers on the factory floor today, manufacturers can ill afford to spend time solving these compatibility problems.

According to Wonderware, the solution lies in the pre-installation of software onto a suitable hardware platform that manufacturers can buy as a factory-ready bundle. Kontron and Wonderware are offering just such a solution for the human machine interface (HMI) visualization and industrial control process that factories use to operate their automated systems. The award-winning, Windows*-based Wonderware InTouch* HMI software is now available pre-installed on Kontron Touch Panel Computers (TPCs) for a solution-ready HMI system. This greatly reduces the time needed for installing and configuring a standard computer and HMI software. By bundling the TPC with the HMI software, customers no longer have to worry about compatibility, and must simply add their customized InTouch application files prior to deployment.