TECHNICAL FIELD

Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to the fields of networked computerized industrial control, automation systems, networked computerized systems utilized to monitor, log, and display relevant manufacturing/production events and associated data, and supervisory level control and manufacturing systems. More particularly, aspects relate to systems and methods for automatically correlating process attribute value changes with events responsible for the changes.

BACKGROUND

Managed historians utilize cloud computing environments to provide a multi-tenant software-as-a-service solution for storing and enabling access to historical data, such as time-series data for example, relating to continuous processes and their associated outputs. When the historical data is displayed on a display device (e.g., as a line chart, etc.), the data values at a particular time may visually differ from the data values at other times. For example, the visual difference may be a spike, a rate, and the like. Understanding the specific reasons for the value differences helps optimize operation of the continuous process. For example, the reason may be an event such as line downtime, a production status change, a product change, a crew change, and the like. Conventional techniques prepend a historian name to process tags that represent the data values and stamp events with a globally unique identifier (GUID) of the event data source. These techniques enable searching for tags and events but fail to provide any linkage between changes in process data values and the associated events responsible for the changes.

SUMMARY

Aspects of the present disclosure provide automated correlation of process attribute value changes with events responsible for the changes. A managed historian utilizes a namespace property to correlate the process tag values with corresponding events. The managed historian also generates a graphical user interface for remote display devices that includes a plot of data values of the process tag and a visual icon representing the events overlaid atop the plot of data values. Advantageously, aspects of the present disclosure enable users to clearly visualize events that are responsible for changes in process attribute values.

In an aspect, a system includes an application server and a managed historian. The application server has a name property that identifies it and stores at least one process tag and at least one event. The process tag represents an attribute of a continuous process. Exemplary and non-limiting attributes include physical properties of valves, sensors, pumps, tanks, and the like within the continuous process. The event represents a change in the attribute of the continuous process represented by the process tag. The process tag and the event each include a namespace property that inherits the name property of the application server. The managed historian includes at least one historian processor and at least one computer-readable storage medium communicatively coupled to the historian processor and storing processor-executable instructions. The historian processor is communicatively coupled, via a communications network, to the application server. The computer-readable storage medium stores processor-executable instructions that, when executed by the historian processor, configure the managed historian to perform a process for correlating the event and the process tag. The executing instructions configure the managed historian to receive the process tag and event from the application server, parse the process tag for its namespace property, and create a fully qualified tagname for the process tag. The fully qualified tagname includes the namespace property of the process tag. The executing instructions further configure the managed historian to correlate the process tag with the event based on the namespace property of the fully qualified tagname of the process tag matching the namespace property of the event.

In other aspects, a computer implemented method and a computer readable storage device are provided.

Other objects and features will be in part apparent and in part pointed out hereinafter.

