We all know how important computers are. No office
can be without one and even in industry it is rare for processes to
still be manually controlled. Computers reduce waste, increase
efficiency and boost productivity.
Industrial computers have been
around as long as the office PC and are an essential tool in driving
down costs. But in industrial areas there are challenges for computer
manufacturers as they have to design and build industrial PC's to
withstand dust, dirt, liquids and the occasional heavy impact that are
commonplace elements in industrial environments.
However there
are alternatives to using industrial computers. These are not only more
cost effective but also offer far greater flexibility and less risk to
your production processes.
Here are three reasons why you shouldn't use an industrial computer.
1. Outdated technology.
To
be rugged, industrial PCs are built solid state and often sealed to
protect from the elements. This is fine except that the components
inside need to be as uncomplicated as possible as any breakdown cannot
be repaired on site. For this reason the operating system and many of
the components are old and trusted technology - reliable but not state
of the art, leaving your system out of date and possible inefficient.
A
better solution is to buy a standard office PC to whatever
specification you require. You can then place the PC, monitor, printer
etc inside an industrial PC enclosure. These device will protect the
enclosed PC from the elements whilst allowing any component to be
changes within moments.
2. Cost.
Industrial computers are
highly expensive. That is not to say they are not worth the money as
they are built by highly skilled manufacturers but to cope with the
challenges of industrial environments they have to be built to very
high standards which drives the price sky high.
A better
alternative is to buy a standard, off-the-shelf PC and place it in side
an industrial computer enclosure. The combined cost of the desktop
computer and the enclosure will probably be considerably less than the
bespoke industrial computer but as the enclosure will last for decades
when the PC fails, simply throw in another cheap desktop.
3. Risk of downtime.
Industrial
computers are sealed and solid state, that is unlike standard PC's they
can't be opened and have components repaired or replaced. When they go
down a service engineer has to be called or even worse they have to be
returned to the supplier. All this may take weeks and in the meantime
you process the computer was controlling has to stop. Not so bad if it
is not a critical system, but if it is, how much would that cost?
In
industrial computer enclosure is far more flexible. If the enclosed PC
fails (and lets face it no matter how well made or well looked after,
all PC's will eventually fail) simply take it out of the enclosure and
repair/replace a component or simply stick another desktop PC back in.
Even if you have no spares on site you can simply borrow an office PC,
load up the software and get your production process back up and
running in minutes rather than weeks.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_N_Williams
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