Northampton-based Harting Ltd (www.harting.com), a leading provider of industrial connection technology, will be showcasing its range of innovative Industry 4.0 products and solutions at the Smart Factory Expo in Liverpool on 13-14 November.

The company’s MICA (Modular Industry Computer Architecture) is a compact and rugged industrial computer designed for use in production environments.

It allows manufacturers to access information from their machines — such as energy use and cycle times — and combine this with production figures to generate valuable real-time data.

Thanks to its open-source software, the MICA is extremely versatile and can be used for a wide variety of projects in a range of markets, including asset management.

Harting will also be demonstrating a fully functional ‘plug and play’ kit that uses the MICA and facilitates digital condition monitoring of any kind of machinery or equipment.

This kit can be installed in just a few hours; it will then provide valuable production data immediately.

Also on display will be Harting’s range of robust and versatile UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products.

Its portfolio includes special transponders known as RFID tags; these can be used as smart labels on containers or for identifying tools and antennae.

An RFID system can cope with harsh industrial environments and can endure wide temperature variations, high humidity and dirty environments where the tag may become coated in oil and grease.

Tags can also be securely encrypted and password-protected to protect sensitive data. In addition, Harting’s RFID hardware is future-proofed through the addition of features like WLAN, Bluetooth Low Energy and GSM.