Lake Forest, Calif., Wonderware has signed a strategic agreement with Beijer Electronics in which Wonderware gains access to a range of high-end CE-based touch panels. Wonderware recently launched these as Wonderware Compact Panels world-wide. The Wonderware Compact Panel offering is a bundled solution that includes a runtime license for a subset of Wonderware InTouch 10.0 software and Beijer Electronics operator panel hardware.
For Wonderware, this new offering complements the existing Industrial Computers product line, expanding Wonderware businesses into the CE-based HMI market. For Beijer Electronics, who develops both HMI software and hardware, this is an unusual agreement. This cooperation with Wonderware is inspiring to us and to our hardware development in particular, in meeting the specific needs and demands of a hardware-only HMI solution, says Mr. Conny Persson, CEO of Beijer Electronics Products. Wonderware and Beijer Electronics cooperating like this is an example of alliances that we will see more of in the future. In a global industry with increasingly high demands for flexibility and quality, new types of partnerships between suppliers are required to provide the best possible solutions for end users.
The combination of the high-end hardware from Beijer Electronics and Wonderwares award-winning InTouch HMI software offers OEMs and machine builders a powerful visualization solution that is easy to implement.
Since the development environment for these compact panels is the same Wonderware Development Studio that our customers are currently using, with InTouch 10.0 and Wonderware System Platform 3.0, any of our existing customers will be able to quickly build applications and use the new Compact Panels as part of a networked software solution, explains David Gardner, WIC Product Manager Industrial Computers at Wonderware. The operator panel platform from Beijer Electronics met our requirements for Class I, Division 2 applications. It also presented a clean, modern, stylistic design with the OEM adaptability we needed," Gardner continues.
"Wonderware Compact Panels will be marketed horizontally into all of our current markets, such as food and beverage, water and waste water and packaging, Gardner explains. The models include three touch interface panels with 6.5-in., 10.4-in. and 15.1-in" TFT displays. This operator panel platform is built for industrial environments and offers NEMA 4X / IP66 and UL1604 Class I, Div. 2 enclosure ratings.