System and method for providing virtual online engineering of a production environment
First Claim
1. A system for providing process engineering of a plurality of production devices in a manufacturing environment, each of the production devices employing one or more of a diverse plurality of communication protocols to provide a discrete data stream, the system comprising:
- a remote monitoring site that receives and stores an aggregated data stream from the plurality of production devices over a private network; and
a secure access manager that allows a service provider to obtain access to at least one of the plurality of production devices over an open network.
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Abstract
A system and method of provide real-time monitoring and control of a production environment. Manufacturing equipment having proprietary or non-standard digital interfaces provide a plurality of data streams having incompatible communication protocols that are converted to a common communication protocol by a translator and aggregated on a local area network. The resulting aggregated data stream is transmitted across an open network such as the internet or via a wide area network to a remote network. Virtual remote engineering of the production environment is possible from the remote network through monitoring, analysis and control of the production environment. A service provider may be given secure access to the remote network over the Internet by providing the service provider with a password and/or a login name.
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Citations
8 Claims
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1. A system for providing process engineering of a plurality of production devices in a manufacturing environment, each of the production devices employing one or more of a diverse plurality of communication protocols to provide a discrete data stream, the system comprising:
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a remote monitoring site that receives and stores an aggregated data stream from the plurality of production devices over a private network; and
a secure access manager that allows a service provider to obtain access to at least one of the plurality of production devices over an open network. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. A method for providing remote engineering for an industrial environment, the industrial environment having a plurality of production devices each with at least one digital control unit connected thereto and employing one or more of a diverse plurality of communication protocols to provide a discreet communication channel providing input of instructions and output of data for each production device, comprising the steps of:
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translating the output of the digital control units into a plurality of discrete data streams having a common communication protocol;
reversibly encoding the plurality of discrete data streams into a first single data stream using the common communication protocol;
transmitting the first single data stream to a remote network;
decoding the first single data stream at the remote network into the discrete data streams, wherein each discrete data stream is in a format particular to an individual production device; and
allowing a service provider to obtain access to the discrete data stream of at least one of the plurality of production devices over an open network so that the service provider can formulate a plurality of instructions arranged as a discrete remote engineering instruction set corresponding to the at least one of the plurality of production devices, the discrete remote engineering instruction set comprising configurational and operational data relating to the at least one of the plurality of production devices. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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Specification