Cloud-based global alarm annunciation system for industrial systems

• US 9,614,963 B2
• Filed: 03/23/2015
• Issued: 04/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Rockwell Automation Technologies Incorporated (Allen-Bradley Co., Inc.)
• Inventors: Conti, Salvatore T., Maturana, Francisco P., Asenjo, Juan L.
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, QUYNH H
• Application Number:
  US14/665,128
• Publication Number:
  US 20150281453A1
• Time in Patent Office: 743 Days
• Field of Search: 37920101, 709248
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/058 Safety, monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/14005 Alarm
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0213 Modular or universal configuration of the monitoring system, e.g. monitoring system having modules that may be combined to build monitoring program; monitoring system that can be applied to legacy systems; adaptable monitoring system; using different communication protocols
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0272 Presentation of monitored results, e.g. selection of status reports to be displayed; Filtering information to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5072 Grid computing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063112 Skill-based matching of a person or a group to a task
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5233 Operator skill based call distribution

Abstract

A cloud-based global alarm annunciation broker assist in locating and contacting suitable technical support personnel in response to detected alarm events at a plant facility. The system comprises a cloud-based framework that dynamically matches on-site alarm events to domain experts capable of addressing the alarm events. The framework uses an agent-based architecture to gather industrial data from data sources within the industrial environment, including time-series alarm data. The data is received at a cloud platform, where broker services perform a global search for suitable technical support resources in response to alarm events identified by the collected data. The brokering system can automatically generate service tickets and send notifications to both end users and system managers/supervisors, and can notify application-level experts about events and anomalies that emerge from the on-premise processes being monitored by the cloud-based broker system.

Claims

1. A system for notification of industrial alarm events, comprising:

a memory that stores computer-executable components;

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

a device interface configured to receive, at a cloud platform, a data packet from a cloud agent device residing at an industrial facility, wherein the data packet comprises an alarm record identifying an alarm event associated with an industrial system;

a harmonization component configured to append harmonization data to the alarm record, wherein the harmonization data comprises at least one of time zone information indicating a time zone in which the alarm event originated, technology information indicating a technology to which the alarm event relates, status information indicating a current service status of the alarm event, mode information indicating a mode of the alarm event, or filter key information indicating a field of the alarm record to be used as a filter key for the alarm record;

a search component configured to identify one or more technical experts based on information included in the alarm record; and

a user interface component configured to send, via the cloud platform, notification information to one or more client devices associated with the one or more technical experts in accordance with a communication preference defined for the one or more technical experts, the notification information requesting assistance in resolving the alarm event.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a worker role component configured to add the alarm record to an alarm batch comprising multiple alarm records and to submit the alarm batch to the search component.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the worker role component is further to sort the alarm batch according to application type to yield at least one application-specific alarm group, and the search component is configured to identify a technical expert for at least one alarm record of an application-specific alarm group, of the at least one application-specific alarm group, based at least in part on an application type associated with the application-specific alarm group.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the worker role component is further configured to

determine whether a local support entity is available for the application type associated with the application-specific alarm group based on customer contract information maintained in an application data store,

in response to determining that the local support entity is available, submit the application-specific alarm group to the search component, and

in response to determining that the local support entity is not available, sort the application-specific alarm group according to technology type to yield at least one technology-specific alarm group, and submit the at least one technology-specific alarm group to the search component, wherein the search component is configured to identify a technical expert for at least one alarm record of a technology-specific alarm group, of the at least one technology-specific group, based at least in part on a technology type associated with the technology-specific alarm group.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the worker role component is further configured to identify and delete redundant alarm records in the application-specific alarm group and the technology-specific alarm group prior to submission to the search component.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the worker role component is further configured to

identify correlated alarm records in the technology-specific alarm group,

select a representative alarm record of the correlated alarm records,

set a first mode field of the representative alarm record to identify the representative alarm record as a master alarm, and

set second mode fields of a remainder of the correlated alarm records that are not the representative alarm record to identify the remainder of the correlated alarm records as subordinate alarm records of the representative alarm record,

wherein the search component is configured to perform a collective search for technical experts for the correlated alarm records based on the first mode field and the second mode fields.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein the search component is further configured to identify the one or more technical experts based on expert data maintained in an expert data store, and wherein the expert data for a given technical expert comprises at least one of an application of technical expertise, a technology of technical expertise, a time zone in which the technical expert is located, a geographic location in which the technical expert is located, a present or future availability of the technical expert, or a score indicating a degree of expertise for an application or a technology.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the user interface component is further configured to send a scheduling interface to a client device associated with the technical expert and to receive information regarding the present and future availability of the technical expert via the scheduling interface.

9. The system of claim 3, wherein the user interface component is further configured to, in response to a determination by the worker role component that an acknowledgement of the alarm record has not been received from the one or more technical experts, send another notification to another client device associated with a designated system manager or supervisor.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface component is configured to send the notification information via at least one of a text messaging system, an email system, or a phone system.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface component defines a duration within which the one or more technical experts are to address the alarm event, and wherein the duration is based on a type of the alarm event.

12. A method for matching industrial alarm events with technical experts, comprising:

receiving, at a cloud platform by a system comprising at least one processor, a data packet from a cloud agent device that monitors an industrial process, wherein the data packet comprises an alarm record that identifies an alarm event associated with the industrial process;

adding harmonization data to the alarm record, wherein the harmonization data comprises at least one of time zone information indicating a time zone in which the alarm event originated, technology information indicating a technology to which the alarm event relates, status information indicating a current service status of the alarm event, mode information indicating a mode of the alarm event, or filter key information indicating a field of the alarm record to be used as a filter key for the alarm record;

identifying, by the system, a subset of technical experts defined in an expert data store based on a comparison of the expert data with the alarm record; and

sending, by the system via the cloud platform, notification data to one or more client devices associated with the subset of technical experts in accordance with a communication preference defined for the one or more technical experts, wherein the notification data comprises a request for support in connection with the alarm event.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

collecting multiple alarm records, including the alarm record, into an alarm batch; and

submitting the alarm batch to a search component that facilitates the identifying.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

sorting the multiple alarm records of the alarm batch according to application type to yield application-specific alarm sets; and

identifying a technical expert for alarm records of an application-specific alarm set, of the application-specific alarm sets, based at least in part on an application type associated with the application-specific alarm set.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

referencing customer contract information stored in an application data store;

determining whether a local support entity is available for the application type associated with the application-specific alarm set based on the customer contract information;

in response to determining that the local support entity is available, submitting the application-specific alarm set to the search component; and

in response to determining that the local support entity is not available,

sorting the application-specific alarm set according to technology type to yield technology-specific alarm sets;

submitting the technology-specific alarm sets to the search component; and

identifying a technical expert for at least one alarm record of one of the technology-specific alarm sets based at least in part on a technology type associated with the one of the technology-specific alarm sets.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

identifying related alarm records in a technology-specific alarm set of the technology-specific alarm sets;

selecting a representative alarm record of the related alarm records;

setting a value of a first mode field of the representative alarm record to specify that the representative alarm record is a master alarm;

setting values of respective second mode fields of a remainder of the related alarm records that are not the representative alarm record to specify that the remainder of the related alarm records are subordinate to the representative alarm record; and

performing a collective search for technical experts for the related alarm records based on the first mode field and the second mode fields.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising storing, as the expert data for at least one technical expert of the subset of technical experts, at least one of an application of technical expertise, a technology of technical expertise, a time zone in which the at least one technical expert is located, a geographic location in which the at least one technical expert is located, a present or future availability of the least one technical expert, or a score indicating a degree of expertise for an application or a technology.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

sending a scheduling interface to a client device associated with the at least one technical expert;

receiving schedule information via the scheduling interface defining times that the at least one technical expert will be available to service alarm events; and

updating the expert data based on the scheduling information.

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

receiving, at a cloud platform, an alarm record from a cloud agent device that monitors alarm events at an industrial facility, wherein the alarm record comprises a first set of fields and identifies an alarm event associated with an industrial device;

appending a second set of data fields to the alarm record to yield a harmonized data record, wherein the second set of data fields comprises at least one of a time zone field indicating a time zone in which the alarm event originated, a technology field indicating a technology to which the alarm event relates, a status field indicating a current service status of the alarm event, a mode field indicating a mode of the alarm event, or a filter key field indicating one of the first set of fields or the second set of fields to be used as a filter key for the alarm record;

searching expert data maintained in cloud-based expert data storage based on the alarm record, wherein the expert data comprises information relating to a set of technical experts;

identifying a subset of the technical experts determined to be capable of assisting with the alarm event based on a comparison of the expert data with the alarm record; and

sending, via the cloud platform, notification information to one or more client devices associated with the subset of the technical experts in accordance with a communication preference defined for the one or more technical experts, wherein the notification information comprises a request for assistance in resolving the alarm event.

20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, the operations further comprising:

adding the alarm record to an alarm batch comprising multiple alarm records;

sorting the alarm batch according to application type to yield at least one application-specific alarm group;

identifying a technical expert for at least one alarm record of an application-specific alarm group, of the at least one application-specific alarm group, based at least in part on an application type associated with the application-specific alarm group; and

sending a notification of the at least one alarm record to the technical expert.