What is HMI?

The HMI is the primary tool by which operators and line supervisors coordinate and control the industrial and manufacturing processes in the plant

The Interface Between Process and Operators

The Human Machine Interface (HMI) is the interface between the process or machine and the operator. In essence, it’s an operator’s dashboard. This is the primary tool operators and line supervisors use to coordinate and control industrial and manufacturing processes and machines. HMIs translate complex process variables into usable and actionable information.

Displaying near real-time operational information is the domain of the HMI. Visual process graphics give meaning and context to motor and valve status, tank levels and other process parameters. HMIs give operational insight into the process and enable control and optimization by regulating production and process targets.

The purpose of the HMI is to display easily-understandable, real-time operational information. Visual process graphics give meaning and context to motor and valve status, tank levels, pressure, vibration, and other process parameters. HMIs bring you into the process so you can control and optimise it by regulating production and process targets. The HMI also helps managers and supervisors improve the process by providing historical and trending data on machine efficiency or product quality. The flexibility and advanced capabilities of today’s HMI software present vast new opportunities for improving machine and process efficiency.

Discover InTouch HMI 
Discover InTouch Edge HMI 

Increase Your Competitive Edge Through Digital Transformation Discover how you can Master the Digital Future of Industry, improve operational efficiency, enable collaboration across the enterprise and improve customer experience with the Strategic Guide to Digital Transformation Whitepaper Learn More

Our Unique Approach Enables Operational Efficiency

Traditional HMI control systems have inadvertently created a situation of information overload

Exacerbating this problem is the fact that there is a general scarcity and shortage of skilled labour and expertise to understand all this information. Furthermore, operators have enormous responsibility, long shifts, and can become prone to fatigue. With this problem intensifying each year, the need for ease-of-use has never been greater.

Advanced Situational Awareness

Modern HMIs must automatically focus the operator’s attention on the problem. They must enforce standard operating procedures and ensure timely, easy identification of abnormal conditions. Advanced situational awareness design must help the operator see what is happening, focus on the problem and deliver relevant screens instantly.

More than Process Visualisation

Modern HMIs must provide more than process visualisation. They must connect people, applications, and machines for greater collaboration, efficiency, and economy. The HMI must expose the relevant information, to the appropriate people, at the right time to enable them to make better decisions.

Building HMI Software That Thinks Long-term

HMI development has always been a challenge. HMIs developed with proprietary code often become impossible to maintain when the developers moves on. Some HMI software fails to support older operating systems, trapping users on a platform that becomes impossible to update or upgrade without redeveloping the system. Other HMI software is rendered obsolete every few years, eradicating investments in development and eliminating support. Some HMIs only support a small family of hardware, limiting the opportunity to improve a system with the best available components

The key to choosing an effective HMI software solution involves thinking through the full lifecycle of your process. How will you maintain it if talent leaves? How easy is it to update? Can you add new hardware or change older components when necessary? If an operating system becomes obsolete, will you need to redevelop your application? Can it keep up with technology and enable you to include new capabilities such as remote connectivity, IoT architectures, and communicate with data stored in the cloud?

How the AVEVA HMI Portfolio is Designed for Longevity and Efficiency for Processes and Machines

Ease of Use

AVEVA HMI solutions focus on ease of use. With drag-and-drop simplicity and a focus on rapid application development, it makes it possible for you to tailor the HMI to your workflow. With little or no required scripting, a library of proven templates, and robust training opportunities, the AVEVA HMI portfolio makes it easy for you to create world-class HMI applications with limited development resources.

Platform Agnostic

Use what works for you. Our goal of platform agnosticism is based around the idea that you should be in control of your process. That means enabling you to choose the hardware, data sources, networks, and software that fit your needs.

A Focus on the Future

AVEVA is always looking beyond today’s market expectations. With a constant investment in development, the HMI software portfolio continues to evolve to support system architectures, technologies, and standards as they change. The vast breadth of our tightly integrated software portfolio keeps the evolving technology landscape well in our focus, and helps us anticipate the future user requirements we will support at every stage of adoption.

Unparalleled Communication Capabilities

HMI software is designed to enable communication. Aveva’s HMI solutions include native communication to every major manufacturer of PLC and controller, drivers for protocols such as MQTT and SNMP, simple database connectivity, and native integration to our SCADA, OMI, and cloud offerings.

Backward Compatibility

We want to help you protect your investment in our software. We provide backward compatibly for our HMI solutions. When you update your software to take advantage of the latest capabilities and security features, you won’t have to worry about losing your development investment.

Scalability

Your HMI should grow along with your business. No other HMI software offering matches AVEVA’s scalability. Whether you are looking at an edge IoT device, a single machine, or an entire line of machines, our HMI solutions can scale to fit your growing needs. Our solutions have the flexibility to oversee your entire plant, including seamless integration to our SCADA and Operations Management Interface (OMI) software.

Remote Capabilities

Digital Transformation has made data accessible anywhere. Your HMI should be too. With remote solutions that enable you to view and interact with your machines from anywhere in the world. our remote HMI capabilities are ideal for industries with machines in disparate locations. Especially renewable energy, water and wastewater, oil and gas, and agriculture.

hmi-technology

InTouch HMI is Powering the Connected World

The more complex your operations become, the more you need a common-sense, real-time view of your business. AVEVA empowers innovators from around the world with the ability to standardise and visualise their entire enterprise.

InTouch HMI

InTouch is award-winning HMI visualisation software that empowers you to achieve operational excellence. Used in more than one-third of the world’s industrial facilities, in virtually every country and industry, InTouch HMI software continues to deliver business value in engineering simplicity, operational agility, and real-time performance mastery.

Intouch Edge HMI

InTouch Edge HMI is a highly scalable, flexible HMI/SCADA software designed to provide everything from advanced HMI applications to small-footprint embedded devices. The rich feature set enables users to create intuitive, secure, and highly maintainable HMI /SCADA applications for any industry. InTouch HMI Edge HMI is ideal for OEMs, Machine Builders, Value Added Resellers, Discrete HMI/SCADA, or Process HMI/SCADA.

An HMI Solution for Clean Water

Find out how Pima County has doubled water treatment capacity, while operating with the same number of staff, equating to a 50 percent increase in operational efficiency and a 10 percent reduction in energy consumption.

View the Success Story  

InTouch Edge HMI

Discover InTouch Edge HMI, a highly scalable, flexible HMI software designed to provide everything from advanced HMI applications to small-footprint embedded devices.

Discover the Latest News and Resources

Check out the latest news, blogs, events, webinars, and success stories.

Webinars Monitor and control
Edge HMI Webinar Series: Recipe Management

Recipe management and execution is an important capability...

View Now  
Blog Monitor and control
Five reasons to maximize the value of your InTouch HMI with Historian

If you’re among the 35% of all industrial facilities using...

Read More  
Videos Monitor and control
Anglian Water

Integrated Leakage and Pressure Management Solution “Anglian...

View Now  
Success stories Monitor and control
China Ministry of Railways

The China Ministry of Railway wanted a solution that was made...

Read More  
News Monitor and control
AVEVA Completes Transformational Combination as a New Software Leader is Born

CAMBRIDGE, UK – March 1, 2018 – Schneider Electric, the...

Read More  
previous next
View All

Embrace Your Digital Transformation

Contact us to get started on your journey today.