Portwell and Intel Enable Access Control and Physical Identity Management
Intel® IoT Technologies and Portwell Industrial Hardware Systems Provide a Unique Solution for Ensuring Compliance for Sensitive Environments
Leveraging AI and Machine Vision for Worker Safety and Compliance
In a world still dealing with the impact of an unprecedented pandemic, combined with an increasing amount of industrial automation, the “new normal” has generated significant demand for applications capable of ensuring worker safety. These applications include physical identification and compliance for sensitive environments like cleanrooms used in silicon production, monitoring of industrial settings with heavy machinery in use, keeping track of security zones with restricted personnel access, and more.
Enforcing compliance with policies for the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and limiting personnel to the locations for which they are equipped results in reduced work-related accidents, thus improving employee safety while also supporting steady productivity. These practices also enable organizations to avoid expensive and reputation-damaging citations from government agencies monitoring industrial environments. Worker safety is not to be taken lightly, as safety concerns have become an issue of widespread concern around the world. In the US alone, more than 5,300 people died in work-related accidents in 2019. On average, accidents happen more than 100 times a week or about 15 times per day. Among the citations given by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the same year, eye and face protection as well as respiratory protection were both among the top 10.
Most organizations recognize that enforcement of these policies is necessary and have invested significant resources in reducing risk and maintaining compliance. Many are turning to AI-powered machine vision-based applications to ensure compliance and maintain enforcement using a centralized architecture. By doing so, these organizations have successfully automated their systems via a combination of smart cameras, sophisticated machine vision applications, and industrial computing solutions that do not require human resources to ensure compliance. These systems are better equipped than humans to complete tasks of this kind. For example, smart monitoring solutions ensure employees are wearing the appropriate PPE when required, ensure the right people are allowed in the correct zones, and enable real-time implementation of corporate policy where it is needed.
Portwell and Intel Partner to Deliver Worker Compliance and Security with Machine Vision
When combined with Intel’s industrial technologies, Portwell Inc.’s industrial computing solutions provide an excellent solution for smart monitoring solutions. In particular, Portwell’s WEBS series of edge industrial systems and LEAD series of panel PCs offer its industrial customers significant flexibility for processing the images, video, and time-series data common to AI and machine vision applications.
Portwell WEBS series supports multiple Intel® CPU platforms, from those based on Intel® Celeron® processors to platforms based on Intel® Core™ i7 processors, which provide significant computing power for demanding industrial applications and compute applications like AI. The LEAD series offers customers incredible flexibility, as they can employ this series simply as a monitor, as a Portwell Networking Display(PND) for basic computing power, or even as a Panel PC for Intel® Pentium® N4200 series and more. Those customers adopting WEBS solutions and LEAD solutions as an integrated system now have a single solution for their industrial applications.
Portwell’s Industrial Edge Vision Orchestrator leverages Intel’s portfolio of industrial IoT technologies, including the Intel® OpenVINO™ toolkit for AI, computer vision, and Intel® Edge Insights for Industrial (EII) software. EII is a collection of field-proven modular software applications that enable companies to securely ingest, analyze, and store video and time-series data. EII is based on an open and flexible microservices-based architecture optimized for Intel-based hardware and silicon solutions. This optimization, in turn, makes EII ideal for Portwell’s computing systems, which use Intel silicon technologies to provide superior performance.
Portwell also integrates Intel® Iris® Xe MAX graphics solutions, which offer outstanding performance from both the CPU and GPU. Intel® Deep Link technology matches the right workload with the right compute solution—enabling discrete graphics for creation. At the same time, 11th Gen Intel Core processors power great productivity with 20 percent more CPU performance than systems with third-party graphics solutions. Intel Deep Link technology enables faster, richer AI capabilities for less waiting and more creating, with 7x better AI performance than other discrete graphics. Plus, quad encode engines deliver class-leading streaming and sharing, with over 75 percent faster encode.
Portwell combines these technologies from Intel and its own industrial solutions to deliver AI-enabled access control and monitoring solutions. This machine vision-based system relies on AI to quickly and easily determine if employees are wearing appropriate PPE, clean suits, or other required equipment in the proper areas. Machine vision systems can quickly and easily identify measurements (height, width, length), color, temperature, and the number of elements an employee may be wearing.
An excellent example of Portwell’s AI-based monitoring solution in action is in the company’s very own printed circuit board (PCB) production facility. Portwell uses Intel’s EII to provide an advanced, high availability, and convenient system to monitor employees’ policy compliance. This includes required dress code, safety regulation compliance, and thermal detection for pandemic management throughout multiple areas, including the factory floor front entrance, and in other restricted areas.
How Intel and Portwell Partner
Intel and Portwell have a successful track record of working together for decades. From single-board computers to today’s IoT and Automation solutions, the company’s portfolio of solutions has made Portwell a major worldwide supplier of specialty computing application platforms. In addition, Portwell is an Intel Titanium partner, the highest level of partner possible, which gives Portwell access to critical benefits such as access to Intel® Partner University, access to pre-launch and face-to-face training, and lead routing and lead sharing activities.
For more information about our Worker Safety Solution, please visit:
https://www.portwell.com.tw/solutions/worker-safety-industrial-edge-vision-orchestrator/
Click Here to Download our Worker Safety Application Note for you!
