Netstal’s Machines Take the Heat Thanks to OS/2

Plastic injection molding equipment relies on IBM OS/2 Warp 4 to facilitate 24x7 operation

An operator standing at the console of a plastic injection molding machine made by the Swiss manufacturer Netstal™ Maschinen AG generally needs information as precise as that displayed in an airplane cockpit. How hot is the plastic? How fast is it being injected? Is the pressure sufficient to keep the polymer in place?

Since 1998, that kind of information has been presented through an operator interface powered by IBM OS/2 Warp® 4. During a scrupulous evaluation in which it was evaluated against Windows and two lesser-known platforms, OS/2 Warp emerged the winner on every count—most notably its ironclad anti-crash record that is imperative in the 24x7 environments where most Netstal machines function.

Manufacturing Environments Require Continuous Availability

Nestled in the mountains of Switzerland near Zurich, Netstal has been making plastic injection molding machines since shortly after World War II. It sells models ranging in price from $160,000 to $1.8 million (U.S.) and in size from a modest eight feet to a 50-ton behemoth that fills a room. Netstal machines are used to produce packaging, medical and mechanical components, plastic bottles, and computer media. In fact, the company owns 40 percent of the world market for machines that manufacture CDs and CD-ROMs.

The operator console is both the order-giver and the report-producer for a given Netstal machine. It is the place where the machine operator does the programming for all the numerical controls that dictate the parameters of a job-from the temperature required to melt the plastic to the flow rate, cooling time, and acceptable dimensions of the parts produced. Because the console is also what operators consult to see the status of a job, the operating system behind the console must perform without fail all day, every day.

OS/2 Warp Surpasses the Competition

Before OS/2® became the company’s platform of choice, Netstal’s operator interface was driven by a real-time Intel® operating system that was part of the console’s hardware. Unfortunately, the Intel system had no graphic support. As a result, Netstal managers went shopping for a new platform with a graphical user interface that could streamline programming tasks and enable operators to grasp machine conditions at a glance.

Because stability is so important to Netstal’s applications, it was one of the key criteria the company considered when selecting a new operating system. It was also the requirement that eliminated Windows 3.11 and Windows NT, the Microsoft® systems available when Netstal began the search in 1993.

"We tested standard Windows applications on PCs, and they never managed to run for 24 hours without crashing," notes Rudolf Probst, team leader of GUI development for Netstal. "Our customers typically need to operate their machines 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that was not acceptable."

OS/2 Warp Combines Superior Function with Affordability

Netstal considered another platform with the ruggedness to withstand the industrial environment, but dismissed it for financial as well as functionality reasons. In fact, the license fee for that operating system was more than 10 times higher per machine than the license price for OS/2 Warp 4. The platform also lacked the TCP/IP connectivity that Netstal wanted for remote troubleshooting purposes.

That left only a DOS-based system that featured a GUI extension. That platform, too, passed the stability test, but Netstal was troubled by the fact that the product was not supported by a large company. Netstal was also concerned about the availability of developer support-another item that topped Netstal’s list of requirements.

“For OS/2, we had a direct connection with the developers in Austin, so we could send an e-mail and get a question answered in one day,” Probst reports. “Microsoft, on the other hand, told us we would have to go to the nearest reseller to get our questions about Windows answered, and we didn’t feel comfortable with that.”

Combined with OS/2 Warp Server, OS/2 Warp 4 provides a full range of functions for the enterprise, small and medium businesses, and connected users. In addition, OS/2 Warp Server provides an application server foundation with integrated file and print sharing, backup and recovery connections, systems management, and Internet access. OS/2 also integrates one of the best TCP/IP stacks available, an important element in meeting growing network-centric computing demands.

Graphical Interface Simplifies Operations

In late 1993, Netstal selected OS/2 and began the process of porting all eight executable files in its application to the new platform. These executable files ranged from the autoprogramming used to start a Netstal machine to the functions that govern communication with the host computer and with the machine itself. The Netstal team also started redesigning the application to prepare for the transition from pure text information to a graphical user interface.

Using the Presentation Manager® feature of OS/2, Netstal completely overhauled the look-and-feel of its operator interface to enable key data to be represented in easy-to-understand chart and graph formats. Instead of the raw numbers previously used to report the different variables that must be tracked during the plastic injection process, for example, set points are now plotted on a graph. One line shows the variables as programmed and another shows the machine’s actual performance for easy comparison.

Remote Connectivity Enhances Service Capabilities

Netstal’s new GUI has proved to be a boon for its customers, and so has OS/2’s TCP/IP connectivity. Customers who are having difficulty performing a particular operation can now ask a member of Netstal’s troubleshooting team to connect remotely, diagnose the problem, and prescribe a solution. In addition, Netstal customers with multiple plants now have the power to monitor all the machines in their enterprise from a single administrator console via TCP/IP.

In the near future, Netstal expects to take advantage of OS/2’s Unicode support to offer operator interfaces to non-European customers in their native languages. By providing a universal 16-bit encoding for the scripts of the world’s principal languages, Unicode will enable Netstal to deliver its systems in any language while having to maintain and inventory only one version of OS/2.

“We moved to OS/2 for its GUI capabilities, but we have discovered that it is state-of-the-art in every other way as well," Probst states. "We shipped almost 500 machines with OS/2 in the first year, and none of those customers has ever reported a crash or a black screen. That alone shows that we made the right decision." Probst adds, "We expect to sell at least 800 machines this year, and every one of them will have an OS/2 operating system. It is now our standard.”

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November 1999