Human Machine Interface for Factory Automation

In 2014, we were contacted by a manufacturer of wood substitute wall panelst. In order to optimize their manufacturing processes, they started to develop advanced panel-cutting machinery that required a reliable and user-friendly control system.

Improve the human control of a panel-cutting machinery to ensure the highest quality of cut panels and reduce time spent during the cutting process.

Ensure easy, safe, and quick human control for panel-cutting machinery.

For the panel-cutting machinery to be quickly and simply operated, we designed and developed a Human Machine Interface (HMI) that is run on a touch panel integrated into the cutting machinery. We took into account the highly precise nature of the equipment, since the application interface had to communicate directly with axis control motors.

To allow the staff to operate the system in a productive and safe manner, we developed an HMI with three interface screens for: 

• Setup

• Main 

• Maintenance

During the HMI implementation, we worked with a proprietary UART-based control protocol utilized by our client for communication with the machinery hardware. Microsoft HMI for the Windows platform was selected for the User Interface.

To help our client produce for global customers, we added the ability to switch the screen settings between various metric units.

• Functional requirements definition
• HMI design
• Business logic implementation
• Software development