A Touch too Much?

We’ve all recognised the influence of the consumer IT market on ‘our industrial world’ and the trend shows no signs of abating any time soon. One of the recent impacts has been around the way that we interact with our graphical control systems, something that has remained largely unchanged since the adoption of HMI panels and SCADA systems to replace conventional control desks or operator stations.

What I’m referring to, of course, is the proposal that we interact with industrial graphical displays using a series of swipes and multi-point contacts, much as we have become accustomed to doing when using our tablet computers.

There are some tangible ergonomic and operational benefits of course: imagine sweeping through an alarm list just as you would search for a favourite track on your iPad, or maybe the enforcement of two handed operation to provide an element of interlocking safety when switching a motor on or off.

Written by Mike Lees,
Business Unit Manager -
Hardware, SolutionsPT 

We have also re-ignited the debate about the actual touch screen technology. Projected-capacitive, used extensively in consumer electronics and characterised by only requiring a light touch, or resistive, which requires actual physical pressure on the screen thereby allowing gloved operation as well as providing the operator with more ‘feedback’.

Time will tell whether this is a ‘Touch too Much’ but recent history would suggest that our control rooms will increasingly reflect high street computer shops!