You use them to keep in touch with friends and family, to shop, to take pictures and listen to music, to take notes and store documents, to read books and to make phone calls. Your smartphone or tablet has become such a central part of your life that it’s probably hard to imagine what your life would be like without it.
Industrial automation is trending toward using mobile devices. While kiosks and wall-mounted workstations are alternatives, increasingly industrial consumers prefer to have the option to use their mobile devices — or specialized mobile devices — to work with machinery.
All of a sudden, the operating system matters.
We’ve always said that it really doesn’t matter that Indramat motion control uses an out of date operating system. You’re not going to play World of Warcraft with them, are you? It’s one of the things that sales people use to sell upgrades. Just look aghast and say, “Have you ever even heard of the OS this component uses?” and a feeling of fear sweeps over the people in charge of deciding when to upgrade. They don’t usually stop and think that Mac vs. Android conversations are pretty irrelevant to the communications between the servo motor and the drives and controls.
But all that changes if you want to be able to set parameters with your iPhone.
Is this enough of a reason for your company to upgrade? Probably not. Indramat legacy motion control doesn’t need to communicate with human beings very often. We often see Indramat servo motors that have been functioning for thirty years without any human efforts of any kind. The engineers who finally open the cabinet and see “Indramat” on the servo feel like archaeologists opening the tomb of an ancient king.
If it’s time to upgrade, great. If not, call us. We can offer support for all your legacy Rexroth Indramat components.