Distribution policy for propagation of changes to process control objects

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9513780-B2
Application number	US-201314048533-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 8, 2013
Priority date	Oct 8, 2012
Publication date	Dec 6, 2016
Grant date	Dec 6, 2016

Abstract

Techniques for flexibly configuring an operating process plant or process control system enable a change to a parent object to be selectively propagated to child objects derived from the parent object, so that a first subset of child objects and their respective instantiations are updated with the change, while a second subset and their respective instantiations remain unchanged. The parent object may be a class or instance process object corresponding to a process entity, and the first and/or the second subset of child objects may be selected. In some cases, the change may have been a propagated change, to the parent object, from a child object that is excluded from the first or the second subset of child objects. In some cases, the change may first be propagated to an instance object derived from the parent object, and then propagated from the instance object to a child object.

First claim

What is claimed:

1. A method of flexibly configuring a process plant, comprising:
receiving an indication of a modification to a parent object corresponding to an entity of the process plant, the parent object corresponding to a set of child objects derived from the parent object, each derived child object corresponding to a respective specific element of the process plant, and the respective specific element operating according to an instantiation of the each derived child object to provide a respective function corresponding to one or processes being controlled in the process plant;
publishing the modification to the parent object;
based on a distribution policy, propagating the published modification of the parent object to each derived child object of the set of derived child objects, including:
(i) upon completion of the publishing of the modification to the parent object, automatically propagating the published modification of the parent object to a first set of child objects, the first set of child objects comprising any child object included in the set of derived child objects and indicated by the distribution policy as being subject to an automatic propagation;
(ii) upon completion of the publishing of the modification to the parent object, delaying, by a specified time interval indicated by the distribution policy, the propagation of the published modification of the parent object to a second set of child objects, the second set of child objects comprising any child object included in the set of derived child objects and indicated by the distribution policy as being subject to a phased propagation and, upon a lapse of the specified time interval, automatically propagating the published modification of the parent object to the second set of child objects; and
(iii) upon completion of the publishing of the modification to the parent object, delaying the propagation of the published modification of the parent object to a third set of child objects, the third set of child objects comprising any child object included in the set of derived child objects and indicated by the distribution policy as being subject to a manual propagation, and propagating the published modification of the parent object to the third set of child objects upon a reception of a subsequent explicit user request indicative of instantiating the published modification at the respective specific elements corresponding to the third set of child objects; and

for each child object to which the published modification of the parent object has been propagated and thereby for which a modified each child object has been generated, causing an instantiation of the modified each child object to be generated, and causing the instantiation of the first subset of modified each child object to be executed in the respective specific element corresponding to the modified each child object so that the respective specific element corresponding to the modified each child object operates at run-time according to the instantiation of the modified each child object.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving at least one of: an indication of a selection of the first set of child objects, an indication of a selection of the second set of child objects, or an indication of a selection of the third set of child objects.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the distribution policy further indicates whether or not changes are to be propagated to at least one of: a particular class object or a particular process element object.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of:
automatically propagating, upon the completion of the publishing of the modification to the parent object, the modification to the first set of child objects includes automatically propagating the modification to a first instance object derived from the parent object, wherein at least one of the child objects included in the first set of child objects is derived from the first instance object; or
automatically propagating, upon the lapse of the specified time interval, the modification to the second set of child objects includes automatically propagating the modification to a second instance object derived from the parent object, wherein at least one of the child objects included in the second set of child objects is derived from the second instance object.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indication of the modification to the parent object comprises receiving an indication of at least one of:
an addition to a content of the parent object,
a deletion of at least a first part of the content of the parent object,
a disablement of the at least the first part of the content of the parent object or of at least a second part of the content of the parent object,
an enablement of a disabled content of the parent object,
a change to a value included in the parent object,
a change to a reference included in the parent object, or
a resolution of a reference included in the parent object.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the specified time interval is a first specified time interval, and the method further comprises
delaying an execution of the instantiation of the second set of modified child objects at respective specific elements until a lapse of a second specified time interval different from the first specified time interval.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the respective specific elements corresponding to the set of derived child objects includes at least one of a display module, a control module, or module that routes communications using a network included in the process plant.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indication of the modification to the parent object comprises receiving an indication of a modification to a class object.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving an indication of a modification to a particular child object, the particular child object included in the set of derived child objects, and the particular child object is not a member of the first set of child objects, the particular child object is not a member of the second set of child objects, and the particular child object is not a member of the third set of child objects; and
propagating the modification of the particular child object to the parent object; and
wherein receiving the indication of the modification to the parent object comprises receiving an indication of the propagated modification of the particular child object for the parent object.

10. An apparatus for flexibly configuring a process plant, comprising:
a flexible configurator communicatively coupled to one or more specific elements included in the process plant, each of the one or more specific elements corresponding to one or more processes being controlled by the process plant, the flexible configurator including computer-executable instructions stored on one or more tangible, non-transitory memories, and the computer-executable instructions being operable by one or more processors to:
receive an indication of a user modification corresponding to a parent object corresponding to an entity of the process plant, the parent object corresponding to a set of child objects derived from the parent object, each derived child object corresponding to a respective specific element of the process plant, and the respective specific element operating according to an instantiation of the each derived child object to provide a respective function corresponding to one or more processes being controlled in the process plant;
propagate, based on a distribution policy, the user modification to the set of derived child objects to create a set of modified derived child objects, the distribution policy

Assignees

• Fisher Rosemount Systems Inc

Inventors

• Scott Cindy
• Firkins Molly Marie
• Bellville Keith R
• Jones Bryan Michael
• Ott Michael George
• Marruchella Dawn
• Jundt Larry Oscar

Classifications

• G05B2219/32128

  Gui graphical user interface · CPC title

• G05B2219/31467

  Display of operating conditions of machines, workcells, selected programs · CPC title

• G05B2219/31418

  NC program management, support, storage, distribution, version, update · CPC title

• G05B19/4186

  by protocol, e.g. MAP, TOP · CPC title

• G05B2219/33273

  DCS distributed, decentralised controlsystem, multiprocessor · CPC title