Modeling system for retrieving and displaying data from multiple sources

• US 20060200741A1
• Filed: 05/01/2006
• Published: 09/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/1999
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Johnson, David C., DeMesa, Jesse G.
• Application Number:
  US11/415,710
• Publication Number:
  US 20060200741A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A model development system provides tools for developers to define reusable, object oriented components and views for collecting and displaying data from multiple sources, and for incorporating such reusable components and views into an informational model. Using the system, a developer can create a reusable component, create multiple instances of that component, and connect each such instance to one or more corresponding back-end data sources. The developer can also define one or more associated views that specify how data collected by the component from the back-end data sources is to be displayed. Many different components and views may be defined and deployed to build an informational model of a business entity, such as a business that operates processing or manufacturing plants in various locations.

Claims

1. A method of generating a computer model for the collection and display of data, the method comprising:

generating a first reusable software component that collects data from a first type of data source;

generating a first view that specifies how data collected by the first component is to be displayed;

creating multiple instances of the first component, each such instance corresponding to a different respective data source of the first type and using the first view to display data collected therefrom; and

connecting each instance of the first component to its respective data source such that at least some of the multiple instances are configured to retrieve data from their respective data sources in a different manner than others of the multiple instances.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method comprises separately specifying a data retrieval frequency for each instance of the at least some multiple instances of the first component.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein connecting each instance of the first component to its respective data source comprises specifying program code for establishing a connection between a data source and an instance of the first component.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a second reusable software component that collects data from a second type of data source, said second component including the first component as a member.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising generating a second view that specifies how data collected by the second component is to be displayed, said second view including the first view such that when a user accesses the second view to view data collected by an instance of the second component, the second view is displayed within the first view.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the second component represents a plant, and the first component represents an item of machinery within the plant.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising displaying a navigation interface in which the first component is represented as a child of the second component within a hierarchical node structure, wherein nodes of the hierarchical node structure are selectable to view data collected by corresponding components.

8. A computer model generated according to the method of claim 1 represented within computer storage.

9. A model development system capable of performing the method of claim 1 to generate a model.

10. A development system for developing computer models for the collection and display of data, the development system comprising:

a component builder that provides functionality for generating reusable components for collecting data from back-end data sources, including back-end data sources associated with business elements, whereby a user may create a reusable component that represents a particular type of business element;

a view builder that provides functionality for generating views that correspond to specific components generated by the component builder, whereby a user can generate one or more views that specify how data collected by a corresponding component is to be displayed;

a catalog that contains components generated with the component builder; and

a module that provides functionality for selecting components from the catalog, creating multiple instances of a selected component to represent multiple elements of a common type, and connecting an instance to a respective source of back-end data to allow that instance to collect data.

11. The development system of claim 10, wherein the component builder provides functionality for generating a component that includes one or more other components generated by the component builder, whereby sub-units of an element are modeled as sub-components of the component representing that element.

12. The development system of claim 10, wherein the module enables a user to specify a frequency with which data is to be collected from a selected data source.

13. The development system of claim 10, wherein the module enables a user to separately specify, for each instance of a component, a frequency with which data is to be collected from a corresponding data source.

14. The development system of claim 10, wherein the component builder provides functionality for generating components that collect point data, relational data, and time series data.

15. The development system of claim 10, wherein the component builder provides functionality for generating components that collect data structures via application program interface (API) calls.

16. The development system of claim 10 wherein the view builder further provides functionality for inserting a view corresponding to a first component within a view corresponding to a second component.