Line management in manufacturing execution system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10747209-B2
Application number	US-201715602674-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 23, 2017
Priority date	Oct 14, 2013
Publication date	Aug 18, 2020
Grant date	Aug 18, 2020

Abstract

A manufacturing execution system (MES) that provides tools for modeling and determining information about physical production lines made up of arrangements of entities. The MES includes configuration tools for modeling the entities in a physical production line. The MES also includes configuration tools for modeling the physical production line. Entity data models and line data models conform to the data structure of respective model templates. Line data models include line definition models and line layout models. Line layout models include an entity link model for each of the entities in the physical production line. The MES includes tools for dynamically determining the bottleneck for the physical production line. Other production metrics are also calculated using the MES.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. Software comprising processor-executable instructions stored in one or more tangible, non-transitory computer-readable media that when executed perform a method of providing a production metric about a physical production line comprising an arrangement of physical entities at a plurality of line positions in the physical production line, said method comprising:
receiving user inputs including entity data representing one of said physical entities;
generating an entity data model from said entity data for each of the physical entities in the physical production line;
presenting one or more interactive line configuration views on a display of a client device, at least one of said one or more interactive line configuration views including entity configuration objects, at least a plurality of said entity configuration objects representing said entity data models generated from said entity data;
receiving user inputs selecting said plurality of said entity configuration objects and placing them on a work area at displayed locations on the work area representative of the line positions of the respective physical entities in the physical production line to create a graphical object model representing the physical production line;
generating a line data model based on said user inputs selecting said plurality of said entity configuration objects and placing them on the work area, said step of generating the line data model comprising including in the line data model an indication of the line positions of the physical entities based on said displayed locations of the entity configuration objects on the work area;
receiving production data about the physical entities;
determining a production metric of the physical production line using the production data and the line data model; and
displaying the production metric on said display;
wherein the step of generating a line data model further comprises including in the line data model a line definition model for the physical production line and associating the entity model for each physical entity with the line definition model; and
wherein said step of associating the entity model for each physical entity with the line definition model comprises including in the line data model an entity link model for each physical entity identifying the line definition model and the entity model for the respective physical entity.

2. The software of claim 1 wherein the step of generating the entity data model for each of the physical entities comprises forming the entity data models to have a data structure corresponding to an entity model template.

3. The software of claim 1 wherein said method further comprises generating another line data model and forming each of said line data model and said other line data model to have a data structure corresponding to a line model template.

4. The software of claim 1 wherein said method further comprises including data in said line data model indicating at least one of the physical entities has at least one characteristic selected from the following group of characteristics: can be a source of bottleneck, cannot be a source of bottleneck, is the source of bottleneck, and is the source of production counts.

5. The software of claim 4 wherein said method further comprises including data in said line data model indicating one of the physical entities has the characteristic of being the source of production counts.

6. The software of claim 5 wherein the step of receiving production data about the physical entities further comprises receiving production data about said one of the physical entities and the step of determining the production metric further comprises determining a production amount for the physical production line based on the production data about said one of the physical entities.

7. The software of claim 4 wherein said method further comprises including data in said line data model indicating one of the physical entities has the characteristic of being the bottleneck.

8. The software of claim 7 wherein the step of receiving production data about the physical entities further comprises receiving production data about said one of the physical entities and the step of determining a production metric further comprises determining a performance amount for the physical production line based on the production data about said one of the physical entities.

9. The software of claim 4 wherein said method further comprises including data in said line data model indicating each of a plurality of the physical entities has the characteristic of being a source of bottleneck.

10. The software of claim 9 wherein the step of determining a production metric further comprises determining a production rate for a line position associated with each of said plurality of physical entities based on, for each of said plurality of physical entities, data from one of its entity data model and a data element associated with a job scheduled to be run thereupon, and calculating a performance amount for the physical production line based on a lowest one of the production rates.

11. The software of claim 1 wherein the step of determining a production metric comprises associating a utilization status for the physical production line with a utilization status for one of the physical entities that has a highest priority utilization reason associated therewith and the step of displaying the production metric further comprises displaying the utilization status for the line.

12. The software of claim 1 wherein the step of generating a line data model further comprises associating the entity model for each physical entity with the corresponding indication of the line positions of the physical entities based on said displayed locations of the entity configuration objects on the work area.

13. The software of claim 1 wherein said step of including in the line data model the entity link model for each physical entity comprises including in each entity link model said indication of the line position of the respective physical entity.

14. A system for providing a production metric about a physical production line comprising an arrangement of physical entities at a plurality of line positions in the physical production line, the system comprising:
at least one processor;
a display operatively connected to the at least one processor;
a user input device for receiving user inputs operatively connected to the at least one processor;
a production line input for receiving production data inputs from the physical production line operatively connected to the at least one processor; and
a memory comprising one or more tangible, non-transitory processor-readable media storing instructions that configure the processor to perform a method of providing a production metric about the physical production line comprising:
generating an entity data model for each of the physical entities in the physical production line based on user inputs to the user input device;
generating a line data model based on user inputs to the user input device graphically associating entity configuration objects displayed on the display to represent said entity data models with the physical production line;
including in the line data model an indication of the line positions of the physical entities based on user inputs to the user input device graphically arranging the entity configuration objects on the display at locations representative of the line positions of the respective physical entities in the physical production line,
determining a production metric of the physical production line using the lin

Assignees

• Aveva Software Llc

Inventors

• Troy Thomas Andrew
• Nuse Jeffrey Bernard
• Frantz Keith Richard
• Pouyez Nicolas
• Ivanov Diana
• O'Hearn James Eric
• Haskell Adam R
• Gobalakrishnan Raghavendran
• Norbeck Melvin Philip
• Boyle Richard William
• Van Klaveren Daniel

Classifications

• G06Q50/04

  Manufacturing · CPC title

• G05B19/41885

  characterised by modeling, simulation of the manufacturing system · CPC title

• Y02P90/02

  Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS] · CPC title

• G05B19/418 Primary

  Total factory control, i.e. centrally controlling a plurality of machines, e.g. direct or distributed numerical control [DNC], flexible manufacturing systems [FMS], integrated manufacturing systems [IMS] or computer integrated manufacturing [CIM] · CPC title

• G05B2219/32404

  Scada supervisory control and data acquisition · CPC title