18 \ VISHAY Industry 4.0 and Beyond
C
ontrol panels (human machine interfaces) have come
a long way over the last 15 years. The integration of
displays and touch panels allows the process being
controlled to be graphically displayed, and touch controls
can be positioned so that their function is intuitive.
Figure 1 shows a combination of a touch control panel
and traditional button controls. It's nice, clean, and looks
like it has hardly been used, which is probably the case.
Over time and depending on the environment, the panel
is going to get dirty. Grime is going to build up on those
big buttons and the display. And it never seems to be
anyone's job to clean the panel. Regular maintenance
crews are not going to touch it for fear of disturbing the
process. So, while control panels have come a long way,
there is still room for improvement.
The Evolution of the Control
Panel: Migrating from Mechanical
Buttons to Optical Switches
Figure 1: Control panel with both touch screen and mechanical buttons.
(Source: nay/istockphoto.com)
