December 7, 2005
Project Status Summary:
1. Control software development code complete 100%
2. HMI software code complete 100%
3. HMI external application configuration 98%
4. MF beta testing 75%
5. UF beta testing 75%
Equipment-centric data access
The TagEvents application, as described previously, retrieves tag-specific historical event based data from a SQL Server database. The interface for this application is a context (right-click) menu on each faceplate. The user right-clicks a faceplate to view the context menu and then selects the “Event History” menu item. Selecting this menu item opens a Web page that accepts a Tag parameter that is used to filter data from the backend SQL Server database.
We consider the HMI an excellent location from which to access equipment-based enterprise data. By selecting a pump, valve, or other instrument, the operator has selected a filter. The design of our faceplates (user-configurable context menu) allows for the retrieval of a wide variety of data as long as it can be accessed by the control system’s module tag. Information such as maintenance history, equipment specs, vendor information, or any other equipment-based information can be brought directly to HMI users without code changes to the HMI code.
We are also providing a more full-function data presentation application we call Log Viewer. This application presents SQL Server data in a standard data grid. The left side of the application is a user-configurable tree of nodes where each node represents a filter against the viewed data source. For example, an engineer may setup a set of equipment-based nodes such as MF Skid, UF Skid, and Harvest Tank. When an operator clicks the MF Skid filter in the tree, the data being viewed (alarms or operator actions) are filtered to show only data for devices around the MF Skid. The image below filters all DVC control module types (discrete valves). The filters are entirely user configurable from the user interface, which is also a Web-based application developed in ASP.NET. The application can also be accessed from any desktop Internet Explorer browser.
