What Is Fuji Electric in Industrial Automation?
Fuji Electric is a global manufacturer of factory automation equipment, best known for its MONITOUCH HMI operator panels, MICREX-series controllers, and the MICREX-VieW FOCUS monitoring and control system. Its HMI panels support remote monitoring and connect to a wide range of PLCs through more than 20 Ethernet drivers and 8 fieldbus options. Alongside the hardware, Fuji Electric offers HMI and SCADA software suites — such as Tellus and V-Server — that let engineers program, visualise, analyse and remotely supervise plant data, typically from a Windows PC connected over serial or Ethernet.
Where an Industrial PC Fits
Fuji Electric's own panels and controllers run the machine-level logic, but the software layer around them — SCADA servers, HMI development seats, data logging, historian and reporting tools — runs on a general-purpose computer. That computer usually needs to sit on the factory floor rather than in an air-conditioned office. It must tolerate dust, vibration, wide temperature swings and continuous 24×7 duty, and it must offer the serial and Ethernet ports that legacy automation equipment still depends on.
Typical Requirements for HMI/SCADA Host PCs
| Requirement | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| Fanless, dust-resistant chassis | No fan means no dust ingestion and no filter maintenance |
| Multiple serial (DB9) ports | Legacy PLCs, drives and controllers often use RS-232/RS-485 |
| Dual Gigabit Ethernet | Separates the control network from the plant/IT network |
| 24V DC or 12V DC input | Matches control-panel power rather than mains sockets |
| Wide-temperature operation | Cabinets and shop floors run hotter than offices |
| Long-life, fixed BOM | Avoids re-qualification when a PC model changes |
| Windows or Linux options | SCADA suites and open-source stacks differ |
Use Cases
Common deployments include a fanless industrial PC acting as a SCADA server or data-collection node, an HMI development and runtime station on the production line, a gateway that bridges serial plant equipment to Ethernet and MES systems, and a panel-mounted box PC running visualisation software next to drives and controllers. Machine builders also standardise on one compact industrial computer across many machines so spares and software images stay consistent.
Thinvent Industrial Computers for Automation and SCADA
Thinvent builds fanless industrial computers, mini PCs, thin clients and all-in-one PCs designed for exactly this layer of the automation stack. The IPC3 series pairs 12th-generation Intel® Core™ processors with up to 16GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB SSD storage, and is available with quad DB9 serial ports for connecting legacy PLCs, drives and controllers. Operating system choices include Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 IoT, DOS, and Thinux™ embedded Linux, so the same hardware can host Windows-based SCADA and HMI software or a lean Linux data-collection stack. Fanless construction, wide-temperature tolerance and 12V DC input make Thinvent systems a practical host platform alongside Fuji Electric MONITOUCH HMIs, MICREX controllers and MICREX-VieW monitoring systems.
