Operational Metasystem Transitions

A view of the operational spaces

In my last post we saw the influence of the rapid rise of AI on playing chess, and you might have drawn the connection with online chess games, now using the AI engines for online chess playing.
In this blog post I segment the operational space into a convenient metasystem 'model' to first define a set of operational levels and then layout so of their features and attributes.

So the following diagram lists 5 distinct levels, which I am sure most would recognise.  These are in 'common' usage for many of the plants and systems Invensys and other #pauto vendors provide.

In the above diagram, at each of the five levels, various functions and characteristics alter dramatically. The authorization and permissions functions need to be carefully attended to.  For example a more formal taxonomy might be:-

• MCP - Machine control panel - with access to the control panel layer
• LCR - Local Operations Room - with access to the local control room interfaces
• PCR - Plant Control Room - with access to the Plant Control Room interfaces
• SCC - Site Control Centre - with access to the Site level operations
• ECC - Enterprise Control Centre -  with access to Enterprise level operations

The diagram also shows an increase in the aggregation of data and abstraction as operations take place at a higher level. Equally, as operations move to a lower level, the operations become more specific and more aligned to individual pieces of equipment.

One of the reasons for taking a fresh look at this, is related to the ability to partition the large amount of data and information at each level, and provide a formal method for aggregating it going up through the layers.

Some of the issues which need to be considered are listed below:-

• Operator Access and Authorization
• Operational Methodology
• Environmental
• Wireless
• Mobility
• Connectivity

It should also be noted that the age of the various components used to construct the different levels of the metasystem, can vary as can the vendor of the system components. Creation of higher levels of data is not straightforward and requires work. This is particularly so when the operational databases are created by different vendors with different naming and common conventions.

You might wonder about the use of the word 'taxonomy'.  It becomes increasingly important if systems are to enter the world of artificial intelligence and the semantic web, where data can be swung between transition levels within context and combined in ways which cannot be worked out at the project engineering timeframe.

Also the level of virtualization and information distribution is likely to increase, allowing virtual control system engines to provide data to a more distributed web or cloud based user base.  One could imagine that at the enterprise level, a central highly secured set of servers providing data to the 'cloud' with varying levels of access by people globally.

Within the general scope of technology which can be applied, or for which things are best suited.  We can talk through a number of examples starting at the bottom and working our way up in subsequent posts.

CJS : 12 March 2012

It may be useful to refer back to prior posts...
Engineering the Semantic Plant