Economic calculations in process control system

• US 7,720,727 B2
• Filed: 03/11/2004
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fisher-Rosemount Systems Incorporated (Emerson Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: Fisher-Rosemount Systems Incorporated (Emerson Electric Company)
• Inventors: Blevins, Terrence, Keyes, Marion A., Nixon, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart; Matthew S
• Assistant Examiner(s): ADE, OGER GARCIA
• Application Number:
  US10/798,101
• Publication Number:
  US 20040204775A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,259 Days
• Field of Search: 705/30
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 13/042 in which a parameter or coefficient is automatically adjusted to optimise the performance
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 17/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

A process control system includes economic models disposed in communication with process control modules, as well as with sources of economic data, such as cost, throughput and profit data, and uses the economic models to determine useful economic parameters or information associated with the actual operation of the process plant at the time the plant is operating. The economic models can be used to provide financial statistics such as profitability, cost of manufactured product, etc. in real time based on the actual current operating state of the process and the business data associated with the finished product, raw materials, etc. These financial statistics can be used to drive alarms and alerts within the process network and be used as inputs to process plant optimizers, etc. to provide for better or more optimal control of the process and to provide a better understanding of the conditions which lead to maximum profitability of the plant.

Claims

1. A system for use in a process plant, comprising:

a first data source including economic data related to economic factors associated with the operation of the process plant;

a second data source including process control data related to control operations within the process plant;

a model that models the operation of the plant using the economic data and the process control data and that produces a model output;

an application that uses the model output to perform a function with respect to the operation of the process plant; and

an information server communicatively connected between the first and second data sources and the model, the information server including a router and a scheduler adapted to establish different schedules for delivery of information from the first and the second data sources to the information server based on different user profiles or different user configurations stored concurrently on the information server and associated with different users;

wherein the first and the second data sources are adapted to automatically send the economic data and the process control data to the information server, as prescribed by the scheduler, via first and second messages and wherein the router is adapted to process the first and second messages to determine that the economic data and the process control data contained within the first and second messages is to be sent to the model and to automatically deliver the economic data and the process control data to the model.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first data source includes economic data pertaining to a cost of a material used in the process plant.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the first data source includes an indication of the throughput of the process plant.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the second data source includes a field device disposed within the process plant.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the second data source includes a process controller communicatively connected to one or more field devices disposed within the process plant.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is an optimizer application that optimizes the operation of the process plant within respect to a particular criteria.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the particular criteria is one of cost or profit.

8. The system of claim 6, wherein the particular criteria is throughput.

9. The system of claim 6, wherein the particular criteria is consumption of a particular raw material.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is a diagnostic application adapted to diagnose a problem within the process plant.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the diagnostic application includes an alarm generation algorithm that generates an alarm to be delivered to a user based on the model output.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is a display application that generates a display for a user to indicate an operation of the process plant.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the model output is an economic operational parameter associated with one of a number of control loops of the process plant and wherein the display application is adapted to produce a display screen that displays the economic operational parameter associated with the one of the control loops to a user.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the display application is further adapted to display other parameters associated with the one of the control loops in conjunction with the economic operational parameter associated with the one of the control loops.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the economic operational parameter is indicative of the utilization of the one of the control loops.

16. The system of claim 13, wherein the economic operational parameter is indicative of the efficiency of a least a portion of the process plant.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the economic operational parameter is indicative of a product production cost of the process plant.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is a controller application that performs a control function within the process plant based on the model output.

19. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is a display application communicatively coupled to a control application, wherein the display application is adapted to enable a user to select a control parameter to be met by the control application based on the model output.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the display application is adapted to use the model output to display an economic parameter associated with the control parameter selected by the user.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the economic parameter is a savings parameter related to the different costs of operating the plant at different control settings.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the display application enables the user to select at least one of a throughput parameter and a controlled parameter as the control parameter.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein the display application is adapted to enable the user to specify one or more economic factors associated with the operation of the process plant for use in computing the economic parameter.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the one or more economic factors includes one of a profit per unit factor and a cost per unit factor.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein the application is a report generating application adapted to automatically prepare and send a report based on the model output.

26. The system of claim 1, further including an execution engine that executes the module during runtime of the process plant to develop the model output for delivery to the application.