A system integrator combines various components into a functioning system, requiring a good understanding of how they work together. Industry standards and software can aid in the process, but problems with electrical interference and miscommunication can be difficult to fix.
A system integrator is a person or company who combines several components into a whole functioning system. For example, a company looking to put together an automated work cell can hire a systems integrator to design and implement this project. The system integrator may need to locate a supplier of a robotic arm, machine vision system, material handling system, security system and tie all these separate pieces together so that they work together as a whole.
The system integrator requires a special set of skills. While the system integrator may not need to know how to build all the components that make up the entire system, a good understanding of how they work and how they will fit together is required. In many cases the various components will not originally be meant to be used together. The system integrator will need to work with the manufacturers of the various components to resolve any conflicts between the components.
Many industry standards have slowly been developed to make the work of system integrators easier. There are even software packages that allow the system integrator to develop models to see how the system will interact together, although the emphasis is usually on the physical level. For example, if there are two or more robots in a work cell, are the programs running on each robot coordinated enough not to cause collisions? Fortunately, this problem is often the easiest to fix in the systems integrator project.
Problems with electrical interference and miscommunication between devices are often much more difficult for the system integrator to fix. Small variations in applying various industry standards can make even two systems using the same supposed protocol unintelligent to each other. What’s more puzzling is that it may often work most of the time, with only a few rare exceptions causing the problem.
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