Siemens recently announced that it plans to market a full suite of industrial personal computers and other similar products for the medical equipment market in North America.
Siemens has the embedded and panel PC products assembled at its facility in Lebanon, Ohio. Assembling the industrial PCs in Ohio shortens lead times up to 40% for the OEM machine builders and system integrators, according to Siemens.
“Time to market for new product development continues to shorten in the industrial PC market while the life cycle of such products has become longer,” Thorsten Julich, PC-based automation marketing manager of Siemens digital factory division, said in a press release. “It is critical that Siemens bring its embedded box and panel products to market in a more efficient manner.”
The embedded and panel PC products could go into X-ray, analyzer, imaging and diagnostic equipment — and be used for data acquisition for patient and hospital records.
The in-house development of IPC technology will include software and motherboard manufacturing. Siemens will also feature PC product offerings and rugged handheld units with Windows 7 or 10 compatibility with the IPC technology to give technicians ease-of-use and the ability to connect to cloud-based systems.
Siemens is also offering single- and multi-touch panel PCs with 7 in. to 22 in. displays that are in the company’s Nanobox/Nanopanel and Microbox/Micropanel designs.
“Because our OPC range has full interface capabilities with SCADA software plus the medical grade tablets offer full compatibility with networking solutions in the digital world, we believe the company is well-positioned to enter this medical equipment market with a very substantial and sustainable suite of products and services,” Julich said.
