Editing Event Frames

Enhanced OSIsoft PI event frame version for advanced analytics

Ensuring the safety and continuity of work is critical for any company, as customers expect reliable products and services. In the business world, every company faces different challenges during their production processes, ranging from alarms and failures to orders. These situations require timely and efficient handling. AVEVA PI (formerly OSIsoft PI) System Event Frames are essential for capturing and organizing data related to events or incidents in a process or production environment.  

The Significance of Efficient Event Management in Business Operations  

The Smart RDM Events Module works with the PI System, allowing authorized users to define the analyses that generate events and set the content of event notifications. When an event occurs, the employee responsible for handling it receives vital information with the event message, enabling timely assessment and planning of appropriate reactions. This feature results in a consequent reduction in the costs of failure handling.  

While multiple companies use mechanisms provided by AVEVA PI System to handle events, they often find them to some extent incomplete. Smart RDM understands that comprehensive event handling requires persons with the appropriate rights to take action and overview what is happening in the environment. With this vision, Smart RDM has deeply integrated its Events Module with the PI System, providing all the processes for operations event handling in the organization. Smart RDM Events Module allows users to assign events to specific employees, enter comments, add attachments (including pictures), perform cause/effect analysis, change statuses, and even enter corrections of original data.  

Reasons for splitting events  

However, there are situations where it is necessary to split an original event frame created by the PI System. One reason for splitting such an event frame is when the event is ongoing and the duration is longer than expected. In such cases, splitting the event frame into multiple frames can provide a more accurate picture of the event’s timeline. For example, suppose an event frame is created to capture a maintenance activity expected to take four, but it took eight hours. In that case, an authorised person can split the event frame into two separate frames, one for the first four hours and another for the remaining four hours.  

Another reason to split an event frame is to capture different stages or phases of an event that are not definable based on PI data. During a manufacturing process, a product may go through several stages before completion. Each stage can be captured in separate event frames, allowing operators to monitor and analyse each stage’s performance and identify areas for improvement.  

Splitting an event frame can also be helpful when multiple events co-occur or when there are events within events. In such cases, creating separate event frames for each event can help to distinguish between them and provide a clearer picture of what is happening. For example, if there is a power outage at a manufacturing facility, multiple events may occur simultaneously, such as equipment shutdown and production data loss. Creating separate event frames for each event can help operators and engineers identify the root cause of the outage and take appropriate action.  

Splitting events in Smart RDM  

When a particular event has a defined start and end date and time, Smart RDM users with the appropriate permissions can manually split the event frame into multiple frames of any duration within the original time. This functionality allows the user to define new events based on pre-configured options. For example, if the event is machine downtime, the user can split it into different stages, such as diagnosis, repair, and machine start-up.  

Splitting events can help organizations to gain a better understanding of their production or manufacturing processes. By dividing a single event into multiple stages, users can identify the event’s root cause more accurately and analyse each stage’s performance. This analysis helps identify areas for improvement, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity.  

In addition, splitting events can also help to improve event analysis by replacing the initial event frame with multiple event frames. This feature allows organizations to view and analyse each stage separately, providing a more detailed and accurate picture of the event timeline.  

Summary  

The article discusses the importance of efficient event management in businesses. It highlights the benefits of using the Smart RDM Events Module, augmenting PI System Event Frames with comprehensive event handling. Splitting events can help organizations better understand their production or manufacturing processes and increase efficiency and productivity.