Process control system with a charging function

• US 20040153412A1
• Filed: 01/23/2004
• Published: 08/05/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Energy Global GmbH & Co. KG (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Kaiser, Oliver, Schoch, Thomas, Sauer, Hans-Jurgen, Fischer, Detkef, Unkelbach, Michael, Walz, Horst, Speh, Rainer, Glaser, Martin, Wagner, Steffen
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,325 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/52
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/418 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 Class Codes: G05B 2219/31408 Cost calculation of use of certain machine types
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

The invention relates to a process control system comprising a calculating unit enabling a charge value (W) to be determined from operations occurring in the process control system. Preferably, said process control system comprises a process control computer with a web server and a computer which is used to access the processes control computer via Internet. The charging value (W) is especially a service fee which is to be paid to an application service provider by a user of the process control system.

Claims

1. Process control system (5), featuring a processor unit (10) that is capable of determining a payment figure (W) from operations (7) running in the process control system.

2. Process control system (5) according to claim 1, wherein the operations (7) include the creation and/or removal of a process control function, an operator action and execution of an automation function.

3. Process control system (5) according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the process control system (5) includes a process control computer (15), a client computer (25) and the Internet (20) and at least a part of the operations (7) running in the process control system (5) run on the process control computer (15).

4. Process control system according to claim 3, wherein the process control system (5) includes at least one field device for automation of at least one system component and at least a part of the operations (7) running in the process control system (5) run on the field device.

5. Process control system (5) according to claim 3 or 4, wherein the process control computer (15) includes a Web server (30) and the client computer (25) includes an Internet browser (35) so that the client computer (25) is able to influence the operations (7) running in the process control computer via the Internet (20), wherein the operations (7) can also include operations by which further operations (8) are initiated in further components (40) of the process control system (5).

6. Process control system (5) according to claim 5, wherein the further components (40) include field devices for monitoring and control of components (45) of a technical system that are connected by means of radio communication (F) and/or by means of a fixed link to the process control computer (15) and the further operations (8) also include those operations that are executed in the field devices.

7. Process control system (5), according to claim 6, wherein communication between the components of the process control system (5) is based on the TCP/IP transmission protocol (TCP/IP).

8. Process control system (5) according to one of the claims 1 to 7, wherein the payment figure (W) is a service fee to be paid by the user of the process control system (5) to an Application Service Provider.