Plant Model Overview
A manufacturing plant can be modeled in many different ways. When one thinks about a plant model, its components are not static. For example, a bottling plant has a bottle labeler that can have many different attributes and events associated with it. How many labels is it applying per minute? What is the temperature of the glue? What is the quantity of glue available? Is the machine running? Many of these attributes can be captured by control devices on the plant floor, which can then send the information to an Historian with information, such as tag ID, date and time stamp, and value. If the particular tag, which identified whether the machine is running, sends a "not running" response, Plant Applications can be set up to have this trigger an alarm or downtime event, and then display this information on a monitor or include it in a report.
The plant model is the definition and ordering of equipment that makes up a production line. A production line is a collection of equipment (production units) that operates together to produce a product.
Plant Applications automatically creates a default department, named Department. Creating additional departments is optional. If you aren't going to use departments to define your Plant Model, then you can simply use the existing Department. If you are going to use departments to define your Plant Model, then you can rename the default Department to something that better describes your plant.
You must have at least Manager access to the Administrator security group in order to create your plant model.
The main function of the Plant Model is to describe definable properties of discrete units of operations (equipment) that make up the production lines. Plant Applications provides a five-level hierarchical tree for creating a model of your plant layout. The five levels are:
Department
: The
Department is the
top level of the tree and can be used to group production lines that
produce similar products.Production Line
: Production Lines are a collection of
equipment that operates together to produce a product.Production Unit
: Production Units are the most important
level of the Plant Model hierarchy. The reason is that they are used
to store events around which production, quality, efficiency, and
process information are attached to the Unit and the events on a unit. Typically
a Unit is a key piece of production equipment that is used to produce
a product that needs to be tracked for Production Counting or for
Genealogy. Parent Production Units are determined by identifying
which pieces of equipment produce product that is either a Finished
Product or is considered Work In Progress Inventory.Variable Group
: Variable Groups are used to group similar
variables, which are associated with a specific production unit.Variables
: Variables are
discrete data elements that provide a location for data storage and
generation. For example, variables can be lab tests or process values
for a specific production unit. In other words, variables are associated
with a Production Unit.
When you create your plant model, you'll need to: