Requirements

An industry-leading provider of precision high speed Printed Circuit Board (PCB) printing products required highly responsive and touch input based operator control panel software to be designed and implemented for their Next Generation PCB Printing product line.

Solution

The Control Panel software had to be designed to be intuitive and easy to use for equipment operator while providing comprehensive set of features for configuration, diagnostics and monitoring of the equipment in an advanced manufacturing setup. Responsiveness of the UI and error free operation for long duration was core requirements of the customer.

Drawing on the extensive in-house expertise, Tismo designed and implemented the Operator Control Panel UI using state-of-the-art technologies on Microsoft .NET platform. The solution was designed to be intuitive and responsive to user input with attention to detail on ease of use for extended time intervals on a touch screen console.

The User Interface was integrated with various physical components of the Product using a well-defined but flexible software architecture. The software architecture facilitated seamless integration of different equipment components from the customer as well as third party vendors. This design aspect enables the customer to offer customized manufacturing solutions and brings in flexibility and quick time to market for future product line offerings.

The Control panel interacts with various components of the equipment such as motion control, machine vision, sensors monitoring various subsystems and communication channels with other equipment on the manufacturing assembly and providers the operator a dashboard of all status information and the current state of the equipment. The software was implemented in C# / .NET and WPF to harness the feature rich user experience offered on Windows 7 based touch panel system.

The Control panel also suggests the operator various options available at any point while operating the product. Users with supervisory roles are able to configure the equipment, setup production run parameters, run diagnostics and preventive maintenance tasks.

The control panel logs extensive performance metrics and operational status data which enable the floor managers to fine tune the production process and improve yields and production quality. The operator panel is the human interface to this sophisticated product and helped our customer to retain and gain customers while showcasing the next generation of PCB Printer product line.