Hardly any topic has been as present at the trade fairs in recent weeks as the hardware delivery problems in automation. Regardless of whether you were at the Hanover Fair, automatica or Embedded World, you met machine and plant manufacturers everywhere who could not deliver their products or could only deliver them late because parts were missing. Even with the HMI hardware – as we have heard many times – there are delivery bottlenecks.

BUT we – the Smart HMI Team- have a solution: SMART WEB TECHNOLOGY.

A key feature of web visualization systems such as WebIQ is their platform independence and the use of cross-manufacturer standards. This means that you make yourself independent of specific manufacturers and can access a much larger range.

In a nutshell: these are the main three reasons for a solution with Web-Technology:

1. HMI PANEL
A web HMI, which you have created with a system like WebIQ, can be opened in any HTML5 compatible web browser. Browser plug-ins or extensions are not required, a standard web browser in kiosk mode such as Chrome, Firefox or Edge is sufficient. You can display your web HMIs on any device that runs a standard web browser: on a touch display, on a PC, on mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones.

2. OPC-UA AS AN INTERFACE TO THE PLC
If you use a standard communication interface such as OPC-UA, communication with the PLC is also standardized and you can simply use another manufacturer for your PLC, if you are in trouble. Of course it’s not quite that simple, there are other points to consider. But using independent standards helps to avoid dependencies.

3. RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Conventional visualizations are pixel-based and therefore tied to a fixed resolution of the panel! A web HMI, e.g. WebIQ, supports responsive design. By using so-called flex containers and smart layout functions, HMIs can be designed largely independently of the resolution. This means that nothing stands in the way of using an alternative panel, e.g. with a different display resolution. This gives you peace of mind in the event of hardware delivery problems, since you can use other display sizes and formats without having to laboriously redesign your web HMI.

Delivery bottlenecks in automation are a challenge. Web visualization with WebIQ is a smart answer.