With the rise of the 5G smart manufacturing trend, the volume of equipment in factories is expanding and processes are continuously being refined, which has led to an increasing demand for power and more complex power system architecture. It is becoming more and more difficult for industrial customers to rely on a single power supplier to meet the diverse power supply needs of their factories in a stable manner, which may pose a potential problem for the progress of factory smartization.
At this moment, FSP, which has always had multiple advantages such as comprehensive product lines, one-stop ordering, and high-mix low-volume (HMLV) shipment capabilities, can undoubtedly provide industrial customers and SIs with the greatest stability.
Early deployment of high wattage power supplies solving industry's urgent needs in timely manner
According to Chu Ting-Chuan, senior manager of FSP's Product Marketing Division, FSP has accumulated decades of experience and knowledge in power supply development, and has developed thousands of standard products to date. With this foundation combined with micro-customization services, they were able to position themselves early in the field of smart manufacturing to meet the needs of industrial customers with a wide range of power solutions.
In the early days, factories were based on automated production and PLCs alone were sufficient to meet computing power requirements. Now, as industries move toward Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing, edge computing needs are also starting to be integrated. With more and more Edge Boxes and AI Boxes installed, it has caused the power demand for computing units to surge from 10-20 watts to over 150 watts. Despite the increase in demand, it has not yet reached such a large volume as several Kilowatts, which means it would not attract power supply manufacturers to invest in the development of corresponding standard products, creating a demand gap as a result.
Fortunately, FSP has long been committed to meeting the HMLV demand, and the minimum order quantity (MOQ) threshold is relatively low. In addition, the company has business relationship with more than 70% of the domestic industrial computer companies and has a good understanding of the product iteration trend in the industrial sector. Therefore, FSP made planning in advance and developed high wattage power adapters, Flex ATX power supplies, and CRPS/Slim redundant power supplies, in order to meet the urgent needs of their customers in a timely manner.
To date, FSP has provided external adapters for up to 330W, and as for internal power supplies, they provide Flex ATX power supplies up to 850W (a supply of the same size is suitable for 100W-500W) and redundant power supplies up to 3,000W (CRPS Redundant between 550W-2,400W have the same physical dimensions; and Slim Redundant between 80W-2,000W have the same height and width dimensions). It is clear that FSP not only has a complete range of products that is rarely seen in the industry, but also allows high and low wattage products to share the same size specifications as much as possible, which helps customers to reduce internal management costs by eliminating the need for platform replacement. In addition, the product life cycle is more than 10 years, which is sufficient to ensure the stability of the factory's power structure.
Micro-customization support to meet diverse demand modes
Chu Ting-Chuan emphasized that in the 5G smart manufacturing era, FSP's power supply products are expected to bring many unique advantages to customers. Firstly, FSP has the ability to meet IEC 61010 safety requirements, and can provide comprehensive power supply solutions. Secondly, FSP can provide micro-customization services to meet customers' needs, such as adjusting cable lengths, configuring specific connectors, adding specific communication interfaces, increasing surge protection, etc., and all of these needs can be met quickly.
In addition, FSP has a close collaboration with many industrial computer manufacturers, so they can have access to the industrial equipment development trend in advance and develop new products to meet the trend. For example, FSP was the first to introduce power supplies that meet the new IEC 62368 safety standard and the 80 PLUS certification.
More importantly, the abundant experience of FSP has enabled them to foresee that the power supply needs of smart factories will become more complex in the future, and there will be different input/output voltage forms, unlike the past when only AC input was available, where the possible integration with telecommunications power sources means that new 48Vdc input requirements may arise. In this regard, FSP has developed a product strategy that is most beneficial to their customers, confirming that the "input voltage will not be changed". By using a fixed hardware platform, different inputs can be supported through making only software configuration changes, which will allow customers to quickly meet their power supply needs for different environments.
Furthermore, with an eye on the cloud and 5G development, FSP has developed the Open Frame Power Supply (OFP) early on, launching 65W-250W products for the 2"x4" architecture specification and 65W-450W products for the 3"x5" architecture specification. In addition to providing a wide range of wattage options, FSP also offers a variety of output voltage options such as 5V, 12V, 18V, 19V, 24V, and 54V. Inheriting its past strengths in car charger design, FSP also aims to develop 600W and 700W AGV/AMR chargers to meet the needs of AGV and AMR factories.
Winning favor of major IPC manufacturers with comprehensive products and efficient services
Most major international industrial computer manufacturers are customers of FSP, which gives FSP the opportunity to follow the pace of its customers and expand its deployment for smart manufacturing applications.
Many major industrial computer manufacturers use FSP's power supplies in different sections of their automated factories, such as workshops, central control systems, and cloud, as well as various applications such as Panel, Gateway, and AGV. FSP was able to win the favor of a certain customer when the same production line required multiple PSUs, each with different power and form factor conditions, but FSP was able to provide comprehensive solutions, coupled with a low MOQ threshold and high ODM flexibility.
Lai Chun-Hung, senior manager of FSP's Pan-Asia Pacific Business Division, said that Advantech's smart factory solutions span from data acquisition, edge computing, central control, and smart decision-making, each of which requires different power supply products, including adapters, Flex ATX/ATX built-in power supplies, and redundant power supplies. With a range from as low as 30W-40W to as high as 1,000W-2,000W, there were many matching problems, which required necessary adjustment for power supply products. Therefore, Advantech chose to work closely with FSP, because FSP can offer a full range of products that can easily meet compatibility requirements. Secondly, the professional team of PMs, FAEs, and RDs at FSP was able to quickly solve a wide range of micro-customization problems within a week.
ADLINK's product portfolio covers smart manufacturing (such as smart monitoring of process water and power consumption, AI object identification and behavior analysis, real-time data collection and management, real-time equipment monitoring and fault prediction, AI optical inspection, equipment networking solutions), transportation and logistics (AMR), and control center (visual dashboard monitoring). All of which use FSP power supplies, including 300W-1,000W ATX and 100W-500W Flex ATX. ADLINK's choice was mainly due to FSP's high product line coverage and the high efficiency of micro-customization.
Overall, smart manufacturing involves multiple fields and cross-disciplinary cooperation is inevitable. FSP has formed a smart 5G task force with a number of strategic partners, including ADLINK, Chenbro, Coretronic, and JPC. Such extensive and strategic partnership has already given rise to many successful case stories. The ability to provide one-stop service, comprehensive product lines, micro-customization, high product reliability, and technical expertise to help solve compatibility issues are the key advantages that have won FSP the favor of many industrial customers.
Chu Ting-Chuan (from right to left), Joey Cheng and Lai Chun-Hung - managing executives of FSP