Method for providing a list of equipment elements in industrial plants

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11774941-B2
Application number	US-202217725490-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 20, 2022
Priority date	Apr 22, 2021
Publication date	Oct 3, 2023
Grant date	Oct 3, 2023

Abstract

A system and method provides an impact list of affecting equipment elements that affect an industrial sub-process. The method comprises the steps of selecting, in a topology model, the sub-process, wherein the sub-process is an equipment element that is a part of an industrial plant or process, and wherein the topology model is a graph, whose nodes represent equipment elements and whose edges represent interconnections between the equipment elements; traversing the nodes of the topology model, wherein the traversing starts from the selected sub-process and uses a traversing strategy; and for each of the at least one equipment elements, if the equipment element affects the industrial sub-process by an affecting degree greater than a first predefined affecting degree, adding the equipment element to the impact list of affecting equipment elements.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for providing an impact list of affecting equipment elements that affect an industrial sub-process, wherein affecting the industrial sub-process comprises to control or influence otherwise the sub-process' flow of material, of energy, of information, and/or of other aspects, the method comprising the steps of:
selecting using a controller, in a topology model, the sub-process,
wherein the sub-process is an equipment element that is a part of an industrial plant or process, and
wherein the topology model is a graph generated by the controller, whose nodes represent equipment elements and whose edges represent interconnections between the equipment elements;
traversing the nodes of the topology model using the controller, wherein the traversing starts from the selected sub-process and uses a traversing strategy; and
for each of the at least one equipment elements, if the equipment element affects the industrial sub-process by an affecting degree greater than a first predefined affecting degree, adding the equipment element to the impact list of affecting equipment elements.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the traversing strategy comprises a breadth-first search, a depth-first search, a mix of them, a heuristic, a rule-based approach, and/or statistical methods.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the traversing is limited to a selectable number of hops.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the traversing is stopped for each branch at an affecting equipment element that affects the industrial sub-process by an affecting degree less than a second predefined degree.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the selecting is limited to a selectable number of properties of the sub-process.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the affecting degree is quantized by a value, by a range of values, by a fuzzy value, lower-bound and/or upper-bound approximations, particularly using rough sets, and/or by further quantization values.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the affecting degree is defined by a rule.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the rule is created from historical data patterns, by a machine learning program, ML, and/or by an expert.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the affecting degree is defined by a correlation.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the affecting degree is defined by an ML wrapper method.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the affecting degree is defined by an ML embedded method, particularly by an regularization and/or a decision tree.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising the step of constructing an impact graph from the impact list, wherein the impact graph comprises a node that represents the affecting equipment element, and wherein the impact graph comprises a weighted edge that represents the degree, by which the affecting equipment element affects the industrial sub-process.

13. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions, which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the method according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Abb Schweiz Ag

Inventors

• Abukwaik Hadil
• Doppelhamer Jens
• Dix Marcel
• Kloepper Benjamin
• Rodriguez Pablo

Classifications

• G05B19/4065 Primary

  Monitoring tool breakage, life or condition · CPC title

• G05B2219/31057

  Selection of assembly equipment, system · CPC title

• G06Q10/20 Primary

  Administration of product repair or maintenance · CPC title

• G06Q10/0639 Primary

  Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations · CPC title

• G06F16/9024

  Graphs; Linked lists (G06F16/9027 takes precedence) · CPC title