Sihovision industrial panel PCs performing in a brewery

Project Background

In modern beer production, breweries are increasingly demanding digital and intelligent management of their equipment. Traditional manual monitoring methods suffer from low efficiency, data lag, and error-proneness, necessitating high-performance industrial display terminals to achieve real-time visualization of the production process, precise monitoring of equipment status, and data interaction. This aims to improve production efficiency, reduce maintenance costs, and ensure product quality. 

Sihovision, a professional service provider in the field of industrial intelligent terminals, offers a high-performance 15-inch industrial panel PC solution tailored to the needs of breweries. This solution can operate continuously in harsh industrial environments, displaying production processes and equipment status in real time, helping customers achieve intelligent upgrades to their production equipment.

Customer Needs and Challenges

Beer processing plants operate in complex environments, placing stringent demands on the stability, durability, and functionality of equipment. Specific requirements and challenges are as follows:

• Production Process Visualization: Real-time display of key parameters (temperature, pressure, flow rate, etc.) for the processing flow (e.g., saccharification, fermentation, filtration, filling, etc.) is required, supporting multi-task parallel processing to ensure smooth, lag-free visuals.

• Equipment Status Monitoring: Integration of sensor data is required to provide real-time feedback on equipment operating status (e.g., motor speed, valve opening/closing, fault alarms, etc.), supporting touch interaction for quick problem localization.

• Harsh Environment Adaptability: Workshops often experience high temperatures, high humidity, dust, and liquid splashes; equipment must possess high protection levels, wide operating temperature range, and impact resistance.

• Long-Term Stable Operation: Production equipment must operate 24/7 without interruption, requiring low power consumption, fanless design (to reduce dust accumulation), and wide voltage power supply (to adapt to industrial power grid fluctuations).

• Expandability and Compatibility: Support for synchronous/asynchronous display on external display devices (e.g., workshop dashboards) is required, along with compatibility with existing industrial control systems (e.g., PLCs, SCADA).
  

Sihovision Solution: 15-inch High-Performance Industrial Panel PC
Sihovision offers a 15-inch industrial panel PC solution centered on "high-performance hardware + industrial-grade protection + intelligent interaction".

Core Hardware: Powerful performance supports complex tasks

• Processor: Equipped with a 10th generation Intel Core i7-10610U processor (4 cores, 8 threads, 1.8GHz - 4.9GHz), offering excellent multitasking capabilities. It can simultaneously run multiple programs such as production monitoring software, data acquisition systems, and video playback without lag or stuttering.

• Memory and Storage: 16GB DDR4 memory + 256GB SSD, ensuring fast system startup (≤10 seconds) and instant access to large files (such as production reports and historical data), meeting long-term data storage needs.

• Operating System: Pre-installed with Windows 11 Pro, compatible with mainstream industrial software (such as KingSCADA and WinCC), supporting enterprise-level functions such as remote desktop and domain management, facilitating unified operation and maintenance by the IT department.

Industrial-grade screens: High-definition display and reliable interaction

• Display Performance: 15-inch industrial-grade LCD screen with a resolution of 1920×1080 and a full viewing angle of 89°/89°/89°/89° (R/L/U/D). It offers undistorted color reproduction from multiple viewing angles, suitable for operators in various workshop positions.

• Touch Experience: Supports 10-point capacitive touch with a response time of ≤10ms, ensuring sensitive operation. Surface hardness reaches 7H (higher than the 5H of ordinary glass), making it scratch-resistant and impact-resistant, able to withstand accidental tool impacts or friction during cleaning.

• Waterproof and dustproof: The entire unit meets IP65 protection standards (front panel), and the back is equipped with a rubber waterproof ring. After installation, it can effectively prevent dust intrusion and liquid splashes (such as water mist in cleaning workshops or leaks from beer raw materials), making it suitable for humid and dusty environments.

• Shell material: The shell is made of aluminum alloy, combining lightweight and high strength with strong corrosion resistance. The rear shell features a fin-style heat dissipation backplate, achieving passive heat dissipation through a large area of aluminum heat sinks and a fanless design, avoiding malfunctions caused by fan dust accumulation, while also reducing noise (≤30dB).

Stable power supply and expansion: ensuring long-term operation and flexible deployment

• Power Supply: Supports wide voltage input of 8.9V - 36V, compatible with common 12V/24V DC power supplies in industrial environments, and is compatible with power grid fluctuations (such as voltage instability and momentary power outages) to ensure stable equipment operation.

• Low Power Consumption Design: Average power consumption of the entire unit is 40W+, saving 35% energy compared to traditional industrial control computers, reducing long-term operating costs.

• Improved Maintenance Efficiency: The fanless design extends the interval between failures to three times that of the original equipment, reducing annual maintenance man-hours by 60%.

• Environmental Adaptability Verification: After 6 months of continuous operation in a saccharification workshop (temperature 45℃, humidity 90%), performance degradation was <5%, and no short-circuit problems caused by condensation were observed.

• Expansion Interfaces: Supports HDMI output, which can be connected to a workshop large screen or dashboard to achieve synchronous/asynchronous display of production data (e.g., the main screen displays real-time processes, and the secondary screen displays historical reports); USB 3.0 and RS232/485 interfaces are reserved for easy connection of peripherals such as barcode scanners and sensors.

Reliability verification: 7×24-hour uninterrupted operation 

The equipment has undergone rigorous testing, including a wide temperature range of -20℃ to 70℃, vibration testing (5 - 500Hz, 3 axes), and salt spray testing (48 hours), to ensure stable operation in high-temperature (e.g., 35℃+ in fermentation workshops) and high-humidity (80%+ relative humidity) environments in breweries, with a mean time between failures (MTBF) of ≥50,000 hours.

Implementation Results and Customer Feedback

Since the equipment was put into use, the customer's production efficiency has increased by 30% and equipment failure response time has been reduced by 50%. The specific results are as follows:

• Enhanced Production Visualization: Operators can view parameters for each process in real time via touchscreen (e.g., saccharification temperature ±0.5℃ accuracy). Abnormal data (e.g., excessive pressure) is automatically highlighted with a red alarm, reducing the frequency of manual inspections.

• Reduced Maintenance Costs: IP65 protection and a fanless design reduce equipment maintenance frequency (previously requiring monthly fan cleaning, now only quarterly checks are needed), resulting in a 40% reduction in annual maintenance costs.

• Enhanced Data Traceability: The Windows 11 Pro system supports automatic storage and export of production data, allowing quality issues to be traced back to specific batches and processes.

• Optimized Employee Experience: The 10-point capacitive touchscreen and full-view screen improve ease of operation, reducing new employee training time by 50%, earning praise from frontline operators.

Customer Testimonial: "Sihovision's industrial panel PCs perfectly match our production needs. High-performance hardware ensures smooth system operation, and the high-protection design eliminates concerns about harsh workshop environments, making it a reliable choice for intelligent transformation.