Meet FELIX our Hermes Standard Companion for OEMs
SMT Machine Builders (OEMs) can now catapult the speed they can support the Hermes Standard by integrating with our existing Hermes Software for IPC-HERMES-9852.
Like any good engineering we form our solutions in a modular fashion to form building blocks that allow the creation of bigger solutions.
- We package up our Hardware and Software into a single product creating the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor.
- You can use our Hardware to control SMEMA and create your own software using the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor.
- Finally you can also run our Hermes software on Windows or Linux and use other hardware to interface to SMEMA such as the Brainboxes ED-038 or use bespoke software interfaces to communicate with existing software operating on the SMT Machine.
It's this point that will be discussed in this article.
On a computer network where to put the compute (the software) is always up for debate. Putting it in one place can cause a single point of failure. Distributing it can increase the level of day to day management.
For example using the Brainboxes ED-038 allows SMEMA signals to be detected locally to the SMT Machine and our Hermes software can run on a production line computer attached to the same network away from that Machine centralising the compute. Where with our SMEMA Hermes Adaptor it offers all of this in one off-the-shelf product.
Customer Types
The customer type also will guide what Hermes solution is appropriate for the situation and so one solution may will not fit all.
- End Customer - Are customers who are already using legacy SMEMA equipment. They want a off-the-shelf solution for a single Machine, or multiples of. They are upgrading to Hermes using small steps, machine by machine. They conduct the installation themselves. A local solution to the machine is therefore idle.
- OEM Machine Builders - Wish to support the Hermes Standard on their newly released Machines but also existing Machines they sell in their portfolio. Many will do this by implementing Hermes in their own software, others may want a drop-in solution that another supplier will support. If they are reselling a solution they seek a rock solid solution.
- Distributors - Can operated in different ways. Some are purely a link between the OEM and the End Customer providing sales and general support and can't do anything outside their agreement with the OEM. Others provide technical Integration built on other suppliers focused on their region. Similar to the OEMs as they are reselling a solution they seek a rock solid solution that they can trust.
- Factory Project Managers - These are also End Customers though once or twice removed from the Day to Day operations. They often manage large projects that take a lot of time to scope and specify and so also manage large budgets and may think in the same way. As they are removed from the Day to Day they wish to delegate to others but the reputation still stays with them and so still seek a solution that they can trust.
To date, we have had great success with End Customers because they own the implementation and Day to Day operation within their factory. Strong relationships are formed early in the deployment process with the actual people that use our products. We support Asia at 3am, Europe in the Afternoon and America in the Late Evening, and our customers appreciate our quick responses to questions.
As our products have matured and trust has been built within the industry using word-of-mouth between our customers, Machine Builders and Integration Distributors have approached us for OEM solutions for their new machines and existing customers.
Hermes Standard Companion
We were waiting for their call because we were made ready by previously collaborating with a Conveyor manufacture during 2019. This was before the SMEMA Hermes Adaptor was released.
While Machine Builders who ran Windows or Linux computers as part of their product could already use our Hermes Software, many machines only ran PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) so couldn't run our software directly.
They required a simple device that would become a companion to their PLC solution that could communicate via TCP/IP using simple messages they could define.
So over the Summer of '26 we got to work creating an off-the-shelf solution for OEM Machine Builders and in tradition of our product portfolio we have named it FELIX - The Hermes Standard Companion. Under the hood it's a speedy 2.4GHz Raspberry Pi 5 with all our software and software licensing included.
Our Hermes Standard Software coupled with the existing functionality of MultiPlug already provides a large set of APIs (Application Programming Interface) to conduct most common tasks. As always we will work in collaboration with Machine Builders and Integration Distributors if they seek new functionality or API access such as the use of Modbus which is commonly used by PLCs.
For more information view the Hermes Standard Companion Product Page.
About 4IR.UK British Systems
We are a Smart Factory solutions provider for the SMT Electronics Assembly manufacturing industry. We were founded in 2016 after the support of a seed funded Business Accelerator. We create hardware Adaptors that operate in more than 20 countries that extend the life of SMEMA based manufacturing equipment by providing solutions for production monitoring and supporting data connections to the Hermes Standard and the Connected Factory Exchange CFX. We also develop Software Extensions for the Low-Code No-Code MultiPlug Edge Computing Platform. The flexibility of off-the-shelf software combined with inside industrial experience means that 4IR.UK is ideally placed to anticipate and respond to a factory's changing needs.
