Event monitor coupled to a quality review system

Abstract

A quality review system may be used to analyze the operation of manufacturing processes within a plant based on data collected by various data sources in the plant to automatically detect, store and display predetermined conditions within the process effecting the quality of the product produced by the plant. The quality review system includes a configuration application that enables a user to create one or more monitoring rules, a monitoring application that collects data from the process and that uses the monitoring rules during operation of the process to analyze the process data to detect one or more predetermined conditions within the process, and an external receiver that stores and/or uses the messages pertaining to the detected predetermined conditions.

1 . A quality review system for use in reviewing the operation of a process, comprising:
 a rules database that stores a plurality of rules, wherein each of the plurality of rules includes logic that identifies conditions associated with one or more exceptions within a process;   one or more data sources configured to collect process data within the process during operation of the process and to send the collected process data in one or more data messages;   an exception engine that processes the process data within one or more data messages from the data sources using the rules in the rules database to determine if an exception exists as defined by any of the plurality of rules based on the process data within the data messages, wherein the exception engine, upon identifying an exception based on one of the rules, creates an exception record for the determined exception and stores the exception record in an exception record database;   an event monitor communicatively connected to an external system and to the exception engine, wherein the event monitor is configured to detect conditions within the external system and to send external information regarding the conditions within the external system to the exception engine, and wherein the exception engine detects one or more further exceptions based on the external information from the event monitor and creates and stores one or more further exception records in the exception record database for the one or more further exceptions; and   a review interface that enables a user to review the exceptions and the further exceptions as identified by the exception engine and as stored as the exception records and the further exception records in the exception record database.   
     
     
         2 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the external system is a process control system and the event monitor detects events within the process control system. 
     
     
         3 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the event monitor is communicatively connected to the external system via an OPC interface and receives OPC data about the external system via the OPC interface. 
     
     
         4 . The quality review system of  claim 3 , wherein the event monitor receives OPC alarm and event data from the external system via the OPC interface. 
     
     
         5 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the exception engine is executed in a first server and wherein the event monitor is executed in the first server. 
     
     
         6 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the exception engine is executed in a first server and wherein the event monitor is executed in a second computer device different than the first server. 
     
     
         7 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the event monitor receives external system data from the external system and performs processing on the external data from the external system to determine the one or more conditions associated with the external system. 
     
     
         8 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the exception engine uses one or more rules within the rules database to analyze the external information regarding the conditions within the process from the event monitor to detect the one or more further exceptions. 
     
     
         9 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the external system is a safety instrumentation system and the event monitor analyzes safety instrumentation data. 
     
     
         10 . The quality review system of  claim 1 , wherein the external system is a maintenance system and the event monitor analyzes maintenance data from the maintenance system. 
     
     
         11 . A monitoring system for use in monitoring the operation of a process, comprising:
 a run-time monitoring application stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor including;
 a configuration storage that stores a configuration, the configuration including a plurality of rules, wherein each of the plurality of rules includes a logical definition that defines one or more predefined events to be detected within the process, 
 a communication interface adapted to be communicatively connected to receive a configuration including the plurality of rules, and adapted to be communicatively connected to an external data source to receive data messages from the external data source, and 
 a logic engine that operates during run-time of the process to process data within one or more data messages from the external data source using the plurality of rules to determine if a predetermined condition exists as defined by any of the plurality of rules, wherein the logic engine, upon identifying the existence of a predetermined condition as defined by one of the plurality of rules, creates a message identifying the predetermined condition and sends the message to an external receiver; and 
   a configuration application stored in a memory and adapted to be executed on a processor to enable a user to create the configuration, including enabling the user to create each of the plurality of rules to be implemented in the logic engine and to provide the configuration to the run-time application via the communication interface.   
     
     
         12 . The monitoring system of  claim 11 , further including an OPC interface, wherein the run-time monitoring application is communicatively coupled to the OPC interface to receive data messages using an OPC protocol and wherein the rules engine processes the data within the OPC data messages using the plurality of rules. 
     
     
         13 . The monitoring system of  claim 12 , wherein the plurality of rules within the configuration specifies combinations of data or events to be detected by the OPC interface and wherein the run-time application configures the OPC interface to send data messages to the run-time application indicating a predetermined condition when a combination of data or events is detected by the OPC interface. 
     
     
         14 . The monitoring system of  claim 11 , further including a work flow monitoring system that includes a rules database that stores a plurality of rules, wherein each of the plurality of rules includes logic that identifies conditions associated with one or more exceptions within a process; and
 an exception engine that processes data within a data message from process equipment using the rules in the rules database to determine if an exception exists as defined by any of the plurality of rules, wherein the exception engine, upon identifying an exception based on one of the rules, stores information about the exception as an exception record in an exception record database;   wherein the work flow monitoring system is the external receiver and wherein the exception engine further processes the message identifying a predetermined condition from the monitoring system application.   
     
     
         15 . The monitoring system of  claim 14 , wherein the exception engine processes the message identifying a predetermined condition using the rules in the rules database to determine an exception based on the message identifying a predetermined condition. 
     
     
         16 . The monitoring system of  claim 14 , wherein the exception engine processes the message identifying a predetermined condition by storing the message identifying a predetermined condition in the exception record database. 
     
     
         17 . The monitoring system of  claim 11 , further including an event database, wherein the event database is the external receiver and the event database stores the message identifying a predetermined condition. 
     
     
         18 . The monitoring system of  claim 11 , further including a monitoring user interface, wherein the monitoring user interface is the external receiver and the monitoring user interface displays the message identifying a predetermined condition to a user. 
     
     
         19 . A method of monitoring a process, comprising:
 enabling, via a computer processor based interface device, a user to create a monitoring application configuration by specifying a plurality of logic rules that define one or more predetermined conditions to be detected in the process;   providing a run-time monitoring application with the monitoring application configuration including the plurality of rules;   communicatively coupling the run-time monitoring application to the one or more data sources associated with the process, the run-time application adapted to execute on a processor during operation of the process;   receiving, at the run-time application, during operation of the process, data messages from the one or more data sources associated with the process;   processing, on a computer processor, the data within the data messages from the one or more data sources using the plurality of rules to determine if a predetermined condition exists as defined by any of the plurality of rules, and upon identifying the existence of a predetermined condition as defined by any of the plurality of rules, creating a message identifying the predetermined condition; and   sending the message identifying the predetermined condition to an external receiver.   
     
     
         20 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 19 , wherein communicatively coupling the run-time monitoring application to the one or more data sources associated with the process includes communicatively coupling the run-time monitoring application to the one or more data sources via an OPC interface that is communicatively coupled to the process, and wherein processing the data in the data messages includes processing OPC data. 
     
     
         21 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 20 , wherein enabling a user to create a monitoring application configuration by specifying a plurality of logic rules that define one or more predetermined conditions to be detected in the process includes enabling the user to specify combinations of data or events to be detected by the OPC interface. 
     
     
         22 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 21 , further including using the run-time monitoring application to configure the OPC interface to send data messages to the run-time application indicating a predetermined condition when a combination of data or events as specified by one of the plurality of rules is detected by the OPC interface. 
     
     
         23 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 19 , further including implementing a work flow monitoring system on a processor, the work flow monitoring system including a rules database that stores a plurality of rules, wherein each of the plurality of rules includes logic that identifies conditions associated with one or more exceptions within a process and an exception engine that processes data within a data message from a work flow control application using the rules in the rules database to determine if an exception exists as defined by any of the plurality of rules, wherein the exception engine, upon identifying an exception based on one of the rules, stores information about the exception as an exception record in an exception record database, and
 wherein sending the message identifying the predetermined condition to an external receiver includes sending the message to the work flow monitoring system.   
     
     
         24 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 23 , further including processing the message identifying the predetermined condition in the exception engine using the rules in the rules database to identify an exception based on one or more of the plurality of rules. 
     
     
         25 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 23 , further including storing a message identifying a predetermined condition detected by the run-time monitoring application in the exception record database. 
     
     
         26 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 19 , wherein sending the message identifying the predetermined condition to an external receiver includes sending the message to an event database and storing the message in the event database. 
     
     
         27 . The method of monitoring a process of  claim 19 , wherein sending the message identifying the predetermined condition to an external receiver includes sending the message to a monitoring user interface and displaying the message identifying the predetermined condition to a user via the monitoring user interface.