Projects within a process control asset management system

Abstract

An asset management system used in a process control plant or other control system includes a database that stores asset data for each of a plurality of devices within the plant and a viewing system that accesses the asset data to provide statistical information to a user pertaining to the plant assets. The asset management system enables a user to define and store one or more projects within the plant and a set of plant assets associated with each of the projects. Thereafter, the asset management system performs statistical analyses on the assets within one or more of the defined projects and presents, to a user via a user interface, raw and statistical information pertaining to the assets within the project. The analysis engine may determine the device states or health statuses of the assets associated with the project and may present statistical and/or historical information regarding the number or percentage of assets within the project that are in a particular state or status. The system enables a user to use this information to determine the progress of or completion percentage of the entire project.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method of tracking device information for devices within a plant environment having a multiplicity of plant assets, where at least some of the plant assets are communicatively connected to operate in the plant during run-time to control a process, the method comprising:
 obtaining, at a computing device, a project definition for one or more projects within the plant, each of the project definitions including a list of plant assets associated with the project and which are not associated with the run-time system of the plant when the project is on-going;   storing the project definition for each of the one or more projects within a computer readable memory;   acquiring and storing in a database a set of device data for each of a multiplicity of plant assets in the plant, the device data for a particular plant asset defining device information for particular plant asset;   accessing the device data as stored in the database for each of the plant assets that is not associated with any on-going project and thus for each plant asset associated with the run-time system;   determining one or more plant asset metrics using the accessed device data for the plant assets without including device data for plant assets within any of the on-going projects; and   presenting the one more or plant asset metrics to a user via a user interface device.   
     
     
         2 . The computer-implemented method of tracking device information of  claim 1 , further including enabling a user to indicate that a defined project in completed and moving the plant assets associated with the project that is completed to the run-time system. 
     
     
         3 . The computer-implemented method of tracking device information of  claim 1 , wherein determining one or more plant asset metrics includes determining a number of plant assets within the run-time system as being within each of two or more different device health states. 
     
     
         4 . The computer-implemented method of tracking device information of  claim 1 , further including storing, within a database, plant asset information regarding one or more plant asset states over different times and including presenting, to the user via the user interface, historical information related to the plant asset states of the plant assets in the run-time system over a time period. 
     
     
         5 . The computer-implemented method of tracking device information of  claim 4 , wherein the one or more plant asset states includes device health states. 
     
     
         6 . The computer-implemented method of tracking device information of  claim 1 , further including accessing the device data as stored in the database for each of the plant assets that is associated with a particular on-going project, determining one or more project asset metrics using the accessed device data for the plant assets within the particular project without including device data for plant assets within the run-time system, and presenting the one more or project asset metrics to a user via a user interface device. 
     
     
         7 . An asset management system for use in a process plant for accessing data associated with a set of devices within the process plant, comprising:
 a user interface for presenting content;   a memory storing a set of device data for each of the set of devices;   one or more processors interfacing with the set of devices, the user interface, and the memory, and configured to:
 receive, via a communication link from each of the set of devices, device data for the respective device, 
 store the device data associated with the set of devices in the memory, 
 receive, via the user interface, a project definition of a project within the process plant, the project definition including a list of devices associated with the project within the plant; 
 store the project definition within the memory; 
 store an indication of whether the project is on-going or complete; and 
 store and execute a further application that accesses the device data stored in the memory to perform a function, wherein the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices not within the project definition, or the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices not within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices within the project definition, to perform the function. 
   
     
     
         8 . The asset management system of  claim 7 , wherein the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices not within the project definition to determine one or more project metrics for the project and presents the one or more project metrics to a user via the user interface device. 
     
     
         9 . The asset management system of  claim 7 , wherein the further application is an alarm application and accesses the device information for all of the devices not within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices within the project definition to determine alarm information for the run-time system of the plant. 
     
     
         10 . The asset management system of  claim 7 , wherein the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices not within the project definition when the project is indicated as on-going, or the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices not within the project definition without accessing the device information for the devices within the project definition when the project is indicated as on-going, and wherein the further application accesses the device information for all of the devices within the project definition and the device information for the devices not within the project definition when the project is indicated as complete.