Industrial data analytics in a cloud platform

• US 9,438,648 B2
• Filed: 11/22/2013
• Issued: 09/06/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Asenjo, Juan L., Strohmenger, John, Nawalaniec, Stephen Thomas, Hegrat, Bradford Henry, Harkulich, Joseph A., Korpela, Jessica Lin, Wright, Jenifer Rydberg, Hessmer, Rainer, Dyck, John, Hill, Edward Alan, Conti, Salvatore T.
• Primary Examiner(s): Whipple, Brian P
• Application Number:
  US14/087,873
• Publication Number:
  US 20140337429A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,019 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/258 Data format conversion from or to a database
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/067 Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/80 Management or planning

Abstract

Cloud-aware industrial devices feed robust sets of data to a cloud-based data analyzer that executes as a service in a cloud platform. In addition to industrial data generated or collected by the industrial devices, the devices can provide device profile information to the cloud-based analyzer that identifies the device and relevant configuration information. The industrial devices can also provide customer data identifying an owner of the industrial devices, contact information for the owner, active service contracts, etc. The cloud-based data analyzer leverages this information to perform a variety of custom analytics on the data and generate reports or notifications catered to the particular industrial assets'"'"' optimal performance and business goals of the owner'"'"'s industrial enterprise, as well as perform real-time decision making and control.

Claims

1. A system for processing industrial data, comprising:

a memory that stores executable components;

a processor, operatively coupled to the memory, that executes executable components, the executable components comprising;

a device interface component configured to receive data from an industrial device and store the data on cloud storage, wherein the data comprises at least process data relating to an industrial process appended with device data identifying the industrial device and customer data comprising a customer identifier of an industrial enterprise from which the data is received;

an analysis component configured to perform a collective analysis on the data and aggregated data stored on the cloud storage in association with one or more other customer identifiers, and identify at least one of a predicted performance issue of the industrial device or a configuration modification for improving performance of the industrial device based on a result of the collective analysis; and

a communication component configured to send notification data identifying at least one of the predicted performance issue or the configuration modification to a client device via the cloud platform.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the device data comprises at least one of a device identifier of the industrial device, a firmware revision identifier, a software code identifier, an operating system identifier, a configuration parameter setting for the industrial device, a status indicator for the industrial device, or a role identifier that identifies a role of the industrial device in the industrial process.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the customer data further comprises at least one of contact information for one or more employees of the industrial enterprise, an industry identifier for the industrial enterprise, schedule data indicating a schedule for receipt or delivery of parts or ingredients involved in an industrial process, ingredient identification data indicating one or more ingredients used in the industrial process, or service contract data defining a service agreement between the industrial enterprise and a service provider.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the analysis component is further configured to reference a product resource data store on the cloud platform to determine whether at least one of a hardware upgrade or a software upgrade is available for the industrial device based on the device data, and the communication component is further configured to send upgrade notification data to the client device in response to determining that at least one of the hardware upgrade or the software upgrade is available.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the analysis component is further configured to identify a service agreement between the industrial enterprise and a service provider based on the customer data, and to generate the upgrade notification data based on the service agreement.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the device interface component is further configured to store the industrial data on the cloud platform in association with the customer identifier.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the device interface component is further configured to collect multi-enterprise data from multiple industrial enterprises associated with respective different customer identifiers and store the multi-enterprise data as the aggregated data, and wherein the collective analysis comprises a correlation of the industrial data associated with the customer identifier with at least a subset of the multi-enterprise data corresponding to the one or more other customer identifiers.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the analysis component is further configured to perform the collective analysis based on another correlation of the industrial data with extrinsic data collected from one or more sources that are external to the industrial enterprise.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the analysis component comprises:

an industry filter configured to identify a subset of the multi-enterprise data corresponding to an industry defined by the customer model to yield industry-specific data;

an application filter configured to identify a subset of the industry-specific data associated with a type of industrial application to yield application-specific data; and

a grouping component configured to segregate the application-specific data according to at least one of device models of devices that generated the application-specific data, configuration settings of the devices that generated the application-specific data, firmware versions of the devices that generated the application-specific data, or software code executed on the devices that generated the application-specific data to yield configuration-specific data groups,

wherein the analysis component is configured to generate the notification data based on a result of comparative analysis performed across the configuration-specific data groups.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the communication component is further configured to send output data to the client device based on another result of the collective analysis, the output data comprising at least one of device compatibility data, risk assessment data, report data identifying comparative performance metrics for different device configurations represented by the respective configuration-specific groups, or asset configuration recommendation data.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the device data further comprises information identifying one or more other devices communicatively connected to the industrial device and a hierarchical relationship between the industrial device and the one or more other devices.

12. A method for analyzing industrial data, comprising:

receiving, at a cloud platform by a system comprising at least one processor, data from an industrial device, wherein the data comprises at least process data relating to an industrial process controlled at least in part by the industrial device appended with device profile data identifying the industrial device and customer profile data comprising a customer identifier associated with an industrial enterprise;

aggregating, by the system, the data on cloud storage with other data associated with other customer identifiers to yield aggregated data;

analyzing, by the system, the aggregated data based on a customer model associated with the customer identifier;

identifying, by the system, at least one of a predicted performance issue of the industrial device or a configuration modification for improving a performance metric of the industrial process based on a result of the analyzing; and

in response to the determining, sending, by the system, output data to a client device via the cloud platform, the output data identifying at least one of the predicted performance issue or the configuration modification.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as the device profile data, the device identifier and at least one of a firmware revision identifier, a software code identifier, an operating system identifier, a configuration parameter setting for the industrial device, a status indicator for the industrial device, a role identifier that identifies a role of the industrial device in the industrial process, or identification of one or more other devices communicatively connected to the industrial device.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as the customer profile data, the customer identifier and at least one of contact information for one or more employees of the industrial enterprise, an industry identifier for the industrial enterprise, schedule data indicating a schedule for receipt or delivery of parts or ingredients involved in the industrial process, ingredient identification data indicating one or more ingredients used in the industrial process, or service contract data defining a service agreement between the industrial enterprise and a service provider.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

cross-referencing, by the system, the device identifier specified in the device profile data to a product resource data store on the cloud platform;

determining, by the system, whether at least one of a hardware upgrade or a software upgrade is available for the industrial device based on the cross-referencing;

generating, by the system, notification data indicating that at least one of the hardware upgrade or the software upgrade is available; and

sending, by the system, the notification data to the client device via the cloud platform.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising identifying, by the system, a service agreement between the industrial enterprise and a vendor of the industrial device, wherein the sending the output data comprises sending the output data based on the service agreement.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising receiving, at the cloud platform by the system, multi-enterprise data from a plurality of industrial devices, wherein the identifying comprises identifying at least one of the predicted performance issue or the configuration modification based on a learned correlation between the industrial data and the multi-enterprise data.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the identifying comprises identifying at least one of the predicted performance issue or the configuration modification further based in part on a correlation between the industrial data and extrinsic data received from a source external to the industrial enterprise.

19. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, in response to execution, cause a computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:

receiving data from an industrial device via a cloud interface and storing the data on one or more cloud storage devices of a cloud platform, wherein the data comprises at least production data associated with an industrial process controlled in part by the industrial device, device data identifying the industrial device, and customer data comprising a customer identifier associated with an industrial organization that owns the industrial device;

aggregating the data with other data associated with one or more other customer identifiers to yield aggregated data;

analyzing the aggregated data based on a customer model corresponding to the customer identifier;

determining at least one of a predicted performance issue of the industrial device or a device configuration recommendation for improvement of a performance metric of the industrial process based on a result of the analyzing; and

sending output data identifying at least one of the predicted performance issue or the device configuration recommendation to a client device via the cloud platform.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as the device data, at least one of a device identifier, a firmware revision identifier, a software code identifier, an operating system identifier, a configuration parameter setting for the industrial device, a status indicator for the industrial device, a role identifier that identifies a role of the industrial device in the industrial process, or identification of one or more other devices communicatively connected to the industrial device.

21. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the receiving comprises receiving, as the customer data, the customer identifier and at least one of contact information for one or more employees of the industrial organization, an industry identifier for the industrial organization, or service contract data defining a service agreement between the industrial organization and a service provider.