Very clean. All the touchscreens are IP67 or better and can be wiped, washed, and sanitized very easily and repeatedly with minimal training. Ours are even pressure washed alongside the rest of the equipment during routine cleaning and maintenance.
Keyboards are more difficult to keep clean, have plastic bits that don’t show up on a safety metal detector on the line, and just in general aren’t needed when the only functions the operator really needs are start and stop.
Fair. I’ve just worked with field worker Toughbooks and hardened iPads in the past, and I didn’t really want to touch them lol. Sounds like they’re treated better in a factory
Yeah, factories have set schedules for cleaning and maintenance, and the HMIs just fall right in with everything else. The big thing is that all the modern stuff is computer controlled and usually remotely managed.
So, a worker would either enter an order on a computer and “print” to a line from there, or a central control room manages those jobs, or sometimes there might be a few different barcodes and a scan gun to select an entry from things posted on the wall or a book. Either way, the complexity doesn’t exist at the actual machine.
The worker then goes to the machine’s HMI, validates everything is ready and the order loaded, and hits start. Once done, the machine finishes and a report is logged.
Literally wash and rinse, if needed, and repeat!
Factories that are concerned with cleanliness and contamination concerns don’t allow compute devices to traverse onto the production floor and back, in my experience. You don’t see any traditional desktops or laptops there, nor mobile devices — even personal ones — or even ToughBooks as they’re not allowed. It just comes down to sanitation concerns and risk to the plant and product(s) being produced.
How clean are the touchscreens on a scale of “factory new” to “toddler grime”?
Very clean. All the touchscreens are IP67 or better and can be wiped, washed, and sanitized very easily and repeatedly with minimal training. Ours are even pressure washed alongside the rest of the equipment during routine cleaning and maintenance.
Keyboards are more difficult to keep clean, have plastic bits that don’t show up on a safety metal detector on the line, and just in general aren’t needed when the only functions the operator really needs are start and stop.
Fair. I’ve just worked with field worker Toughbooks and hardened iPads in the past, and I didn’t really want to touch them lol. Sounds like they’re treated better in a factory
Yeah, factories have set schedules for cleaning and maintenance, and the HMIs just fall right in with everything else. The big thing is that all the modern stuff is computer controlled and usually remotely managed.
So, a worker would either enter an order on a computer and “print” to a line from there, or a central control room manages those jobs, or sometimes there might be a few different barcodes and a scan gun to select an entry from things posted on the wall or a book. Either way, the complexity doesn’t exist at the actual machine.
The worker then goes to the machine’s HMI, validates everything is ready and the order loaded, and hits start. Once done, the machine finishes and a report is logged.
Literally wash and rinse, if needed, and repeat!
Factories that are concerned with cleanliness and contamination concerns don’t allow compute devices to traverse onto the production floor and back, in my experience. You don’t see any traditional desktops or laptops there, nor mobile devices — even personal ones — or even ToughBooks as they’re not allowed. It just comes down to sanitation concerns and risk to the plant and product(s) being produced.