Design and development of an industrial monitoring system using Windows NT as a real-time operating system

There has been increasing interest in the industry for the development of new technologies where real time systems could improve the quality of products and provide cost savings. Hence, a monitoring system is needed with real time constraints. Manufacturing is one of the fields in which more technological improvements have emerged during the last few years, with special interest in integrated manufacturing and real time information systems development. Market forces and the acceptance of Windows NT in industrial applications make it a good choice. Our monitoring system for the tile manufacturing industry has been designed and programmed using standard off-the-shelf tools obtaining several advantages over embedded SCADA tools such as: great flexibility, easy-to-handle data interface adding control of processes or systems supervision, and remote interconnection facilities. The results of the above study should provide system designers with guidelines into the design of real time applications, especially monitoring or data acquisition, supported by NT.