The invention relates to a method for interlinking technical data and to a system for operating and observing an industrial plant.
The automation of an industrial plant involves the production of a large number of technical results, known as engineering results. If they are in the form of electronic data, these results are in data formats that are completely different from one another—even if they relate to a single industrial plant. This makes it much more difficult to operate, service and expand the industrial plant.
Thus there exists a need to make it easier to operate, service and expand an industrial plant.
According to an embodiment, a method for processing process data of a technical plant, may comprise the steps of feeding documentation data of the process data stored in different data formats to a documentation generator, extracting the documentation data by means of the documentation generator from associated files and/or tools, converting and storing the documentation data into at least one standardized format, and interlinking the documentation data, stored in at least one standardized format, with one another on the basis of semantic aspects and storing and/or outputting the interlinkage.
Further advantages and details of the invention are described below by way of example on the basis of the drawings, in which:
According to an embodiment, in a method for interlinking technical data, in a first step, data for the documentation of an industrial plant and/or engineering results of the industrial plant are transferred into at least one standardized format by means of a documentation generator, and in a second step, the data in the at least one standardized format are interlinked on the basis of semantic aspects.
This interlinkage of the data in the at least one standardized format can be advantageously replicated in the form of navigation paths.
The data, interlinked and in the at least one standardized format, can be advantageously stored as generated plant documentation on a documentation server.
According to another embodiment, a system for operating and observing an industrial plant may comprise at least one input and output device, at least one automation device and a documentation server, on which the generated plant documentation is stored, the at least one input and output device being coupled with the at least one automation device.
The input and output device may advantageously have means for activating the automation device, which means can be linked context-sensitively with the corresponding parts of the generated plant documentation stored on the documentation server.
Considerably faster and less error-prone tracing of fault patterns in the industrial plant, parts thereof or in its automation system is made possible according to different embodiments. Furthermore, targeted expansion of plant automation becomes possible, since the component parts of the industrial plant and of the automation system of the industrial plant can be comprehensively considered along with the ways in which they interact internally and with respect to one another.
Engineering results are generally initially stored on different data carriers 8 to 11, a number of different data formats being used for different engineering results. The data carriers 8 to 11 are preferably electronic data carriers, such as for example CD-ROMs. A data carrier 8 to 11 may, however, also be a module, for example an automation device 3. On the data carriers 8 to 11, engineering results are stored as original data, for example as a file in pdf format, as an AutoCAD drawing, or for example also as a standard file of an application program of a personal computer, for example in Microsoft Office format. On a data carrier 8 to 11, data may also be stored in various proprietary formats of engineering tools, for example Sigraph or SIMATIC PCS 7. Engineering results stored on one or more data carriers 8 to 11 are also, for example, schematic circuit diagrams, CAD documents, plant layouts and software plans.
According to an embodiment, the data carriers 8 to 11 with the original data, i.e. the engineering data and/or data for plant documentation in the different data formats, are fed to a documentation generator 7. The documentation generator 7 has corresponding interfaces, in order to extract the data stored on the data carriers 8 to 11 in the different data formats automatically from documentation and engineering tools and transfer them into a standardized format. One of the effects achieved by this is independence from the engineering tools originally used and availability of the latter whenever access to plant-specific data for operating, servicing and/or expanding the plant is concerned. One or more of the following formats is used as the standardized format: XML or HTML, SVG (scaleable vector graphics), CGM (computer graphics metafile). Original data, for example in the Microsoft Office format or in pdf format, are preferably transferred by means of the documentation generator 7 into an XML or HTML format, data such as schematic circuit diagrams, CAD documents, software plans and plant layouts are preferably transferred into SVG or CGM.
In the documentation generator 7, the data transferred into a standardized format, that is to say a standard format for the generated data, are interlinked with one another on the basis of semantic aspects. Intelligent algorithms are preferably used for the interlinkage. The interlinkages are replicated by navigation paths between the data in the standard format.
The data transferred into the standard format and interlinked by means of the documentation generator 7 are stored as so-called generated plant documentation. The generated plant documentation is preferably stored on a document server 5. As shown in
In
According to an embodiment, it is also possible to superpose current process data of the industrial plant 1 on parts 13 to 15 of the plant documentation generated by means of the documentation generator 7, for example input data of module connectors on the corresponding part 14 of the generated plant documentation. The generated plant documentation is in this way made dynamic and preferably actively coupled with the industrial plant 1, which is preferably in operation. For example, it is also possible to superpose current process data on software plans for example, to provide a service or development engineer with a better overview during the operating phase of an industrial plant 1.
It is also possible to access the generated plant documentation, preferably also the plant documentation made dynamic, from various end devices 6. End devices 6 may also be mobile end devices, such as for example PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), cell phones or portable computing units such as notebooks or tablet PCs. Mobile end devices of this type can be used at least to a limited extent for controlling the industrial plant 1.
In summary according to the different embodiments, a method interlinks technical data, in particular interlinks hardware and software engineering data as well as additional documents, for a web-based visualization of industrial plant documentation with the aid of a documentation generator 7. Also, a system for operating and observing an industrial plant 1 comprises at least one input and output device 4, 6, at least one automation device 3 and a documentation server 5, on which the plant documentation generated with the aid of the documentation generator 7 is stored.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 2004 054 355.0 | Nov 2004 | DE | national |
This application is a U.S. national stage application of International Application No. PCT/EP2005/055832 filed Nov. 8, 2005, which designates the United States of America, and claims priority to German application number 10 2004 054 355.0 filed Nov. 9, 2004, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP05/55832 | 11/8/2005 | WO | 00 | 9/28/2007 |