SHAPING THE JOURNEY OF INDUSTRY 4.0
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, is the new reality. It now turns the gear of most modern economy. Is your business ready for the biggest organisation, computing and technological transformation of recent times? Industry 4.0 is defined by modern technologies and advanced hardware. Automation, AI, and Machine Learning will all become part of everyday work. Smart machines will revolutionise the "Factories of the Future".
With the latest Thin Clients from R. STAHL, you can future-proof your operations for Industry 4.0 with an all-in-one solution. A Thin Client is an item of computer hardware or a software program that can only fulfil its task using a server or data center. The user has access to applications and data that are processed and provided on these servers.
R. STAHL's Thin Clients are HMI products for the remote control of PCs or virtual workstations, for example via Ethernet and WLAN. The MANTA platform was developed for the pharmaceutical, life-science and fine chemical industries, and the EAGLE platform for machine operation and logistics. The SHARK platform is particularly suitable for rough ambient conditions and the oil and gas industry.
The Thin Client is an input and output medium for relevant applications. From a technological point of view, Thin Clients are very easy to integrate in modern distributed control systems. Across industry types they are replacing traditional KVM technologies and PC desktop workstations. No data is stored on the Thin Clients themselves or their hard drives. The benefit for you as a user is significant cost savings for the following reasons:
- Thin Clients are cheaper to purchase because they don't have any unnecessary computing power.
- They are easy to deploy and set-up as they require no specialised software installation.
- Thin Clients are centrally configured and hence save you time in commissioning and maintenance.
- Higher cyber security because the Clients are inherently secure devices.
Our Thin Clients are equipped with the new Remote HMI V5 firmware. We have developed this "industrial grade" software and OS especially for the process industry. It has been designed as a closed system and is based on the Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB operating system as opposed to a Linux-based system. The firmware is highly secure, easy to use and reliable. With the Windows 10 basis, the OS is also intuitive to use by all levels of operators.
SECURE – R. STAHL Thin Clients are closed tamper-proof systems with tiered rights management for end users and administrators. The clients also support customer-specific safety concepts.
SIMPLE – Thanks to the clearly structured operating interface, Thin Clients with the Remote HMI V5 firmware are intuitive and easy to parameterise.
RELIABLE – Ethernet redundancy, reconnect and fallback, system stability and fail-proof operation for the computing clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
THIN CLIENTS ARE YOUR SOLUTION FOR THE FUTURE
Thin Clients will also play a crucial role in the efficient design of process automation in the future. Therefore start the system changeover to field operation now. Thin Clients in the HMI Exicom 500 series can be easily integrated in your distributed control system replacing traditional desktops. The HMI operator stations meet your requirements in these ways:
- Process visualisation and plant operation via remote control on PC workstations, desktops, virtual server structures and cloud based applications for unprecedented manageability.
- Flexible access to every HMI station and device on virtual desktop infrastructure or real workstations and desktops in a network via ethernet or WLAN (including Wi-Fi).
- RFID readers to only grant access to authorised persons.
- Tamper-proof closed systems that ensure the highest level of security, integrity and availability.
- Rights management with tiered access rights offers additional protection.
- Easy to integrate creating the ability to centralize different workflows and client-server relationships.
- Numerous security features increase system stability.
- Fail-safe 24/7 operation thanks to redundant Ethernet interfaces with automatic re-connection and change-over to redundant server.
- Applications by third party providers can be called up securely using the Kiosk app.
- Incredibly simple to use operating system (OS) based on Windows.
- The user-friendly windows based operating interface software offers variable display options for multi-session and dual-screen.
- Optimise your endpoints for your ideal environment.
Thin Clients are your all-in-one future-proof, low-cost, human machine interface solution for field operation. They are adaptable for a range of tasks and applications within the process industry. Virtualization capabilities and connectivity create a future proof platform. In addition to versions for standard industry use, variants certified in accordance with ATEX and IECEx are also available. These variants have IP 66 level of protection and work at temperatures ranging from -40 °C and +65 °C. The R. STAHL product range also includes Thin Client HMIs in a hygienic design that are suitable for clean rooms. These human machine interface devices meet all requirements in accordance with 21 CFR Part 11 and GAMP (Good Automated Manufacturing Practices).
