Method and apparatus for negating effects of continuous introduction of risk factors in determining the health of a process control system
First Claim
1. A method of negating effects of continuous introduction of risk factors to a plurality of process control systems in scoring the health of a process control system among the plurality of process control systems comprising:
- automatically and periodically assessing a risk for each of a plurality of process control systems, wherein each process control system has one or more risk factors associated with the process control system, wherein the introduction of a risk factor to a process control system each period increases the risk assessment for that process control system, and wherein the elimination of a risk factor from a process control system each period decreases the risk assessment for that process control system;
calibrating the center of a health score scale to the average of the risk assessments among the plurality of process control systems for each period by logarithmically scaling the average of the risk assessments to produce a calibration factor, wherein the health score scale is fixed by an upper limit and a lower limit by scaling the average of the risk assessments; and
generating, on a display of a computing device at a plant site of the process control system, a graphical indication of the health of the process control system within the health score scale that discards the same risk factors introduced to each of the plurality of process control systems in the period according to a nonlinear scale being applied to the product of the risk assessment for the process control system and the calibration factor, wherein the nonlinear scale has the upper limit as a scaling factor, andwherein elimination of a risk factor from a process control system in a period has more of an effect on the health score for a process control system scored towards the center of the health score scale the previous period than for a process control system scored towards the upper and lower limits of the health score scale the previous period.
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Abstract
Negating effects of continuous introduction of risk in scoring the health of a process control system includes automatically and periodically assessing a risk for each of the process control systems, calibrating the center of a health score scale to the average risk assessments, and scoring the health of each process control system within the health score scale according to a nonlinear scale applied to the risk assessment. Introduction of a risk factor to a process control system increases the risk assessment, and elimination of a risk factor decreases the risk assessment. The same risk factor introduced to each of the of process control systems does not affect the health score of any process control system, and elimination of a risk factor has more of an effect on the health score towards the center of the health score scale than towards upper and lower limits of the health score scale.
60 Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method of negating effects of continuous introduction of risk factors to a plurality of process control systems in scoring the health of a process control system among the plurality of process control systems comprising:
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automatically and periodically assessing a risk for each of a plurality of process control systems, wherein each process control system has one or more risk factors associated with the process control system, wherein the introduction of a risk factor to a process control system each period increases the risk assessment for that process control system, and wherein the elimination of a risk factor from a process control system each period decreases the risk assessment for that process control system; calibrating the center of a health score scale to the average of the risk assessments among the plurality of process control systems for each period by logarithmically scaling the average of the risk assessments to produce a calibration factor, wherein the health score scale is fixed by an upper limit and a lower limit by scaling the average of the risk assessments; and generating, on a display of a computing device at a plant site of the process control system, a graphical indication of the health of the process control system within the health score scale that discards the same risk factors introduced to each of the plurality of process control systems in the period according to a nonlinear scale being applied to the product of the risk assessment for the process control system and the calibration factor, wherein the nonlinear scale has the upper limit as a scaling factor, and wherein elimination of a risk factor from a process control system in a period has more of an effect on the health score for a process control system scored towards the center of the health score scale the previous period than for a process control system scored towards the upper and lower limits of the health score scale the previous period. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A system for negating effects of continuous introduction of risk factors to a plurality of process control systems in scoring the health of a process control system among the plurality of process control systems comprising:
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a server adapted to register a process control system and a plurality of other process control systems to facilitate maintaining the process control systems, the process control system located at a first plant site geographically separate from other plant sites of other process control systems; an interface in communication with the server and adapted to retrieve risk factors from a database in communication with the server based on monitoring of the process control systems, the risk factors including general risk factors pertaining to the process control systems and specific risk factors pertaining to particular process control systems; a communication interface adapted to communicate risk factors to the process control systems, wherein each process control system has one or more risk factors associated with the process control system, and a risk factor includes an action category selected from a group comprising a required action category and an advisement category, wherein the required action category indicates that action must be taken at the process control system and the advisement category indicates information associated with improving process control system performance; and a processor in communication with the interface, the server and the database, the processor adapted to automatically and periodically; assess a risk for each of the process control systems, wherein, in each period, the introduction of risk factors having a required action category increases the risk assessment for that process control system, and wherein, in each period, the elimination of risk factors having a required action category decreases the risk assessment for that process control system; calibrate the center of a health score scale to the average of the risk assessments among the plurality of process control systems for each period by logarithmically scaling the average of the risk assessments to produce a calibration factor, wherein the health score scale is fixed by an upper limit and a lower limit by scaling the average of the risk assessments; and generate, on a display of a computing device at a plant site of the process control system, a graphical indication of the health of the process control system within the health score scale that discards the same risk factors introduced to each of the plurality of process control systems in the period according to a nonlinear scale being applied to the product of the risk assessment for the process control system and the calibration factor, wherein the nonlinear scale has the upper limit as a scaling factor; wherein, in each period, the effect on the score by general risk factors having a required action category introduced to each of the plurality of process control systems is discarded by the calibration factor, and wherein, in each period, the effect on the score by specific risk factors having a required action category introduced to or eliminated from particular process control systems is attenuated as the score approaches the upper and lower limits and amplified as the score approaches the center by scaling the risk assessment with a nonlinear scaling factor. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification