PMBR

With batch event and LOG EVENT information going into the DeltaV version 10.3 Event Chronicle, you can start putting together simple views or what I’ve affectionately termed as Poor Man’s Batch Reporting (PMBR).

Process History View just doesn’t have the horsepower for the types of queries required. And that’s OK, because the Event Chronicle is a SQL database. So what I’ve done is link the alarms and events table into Access. This was easy because the ODBC data source is already setup for you in DeltaV:

Then I created two queries – one to get unique Batch ID’s and one to get the batch events. The Find Unique BatchIDs query looks like this in SQL:


SELECT Right(Events1!Attribute,Len(Events1!Attribute)-InStr(1,Events1!Attribute," ")) AS BatchID
FROM Events1
GROUP BY Right(Events1!Attribute,Len(Events1!Attribute)-InStr(1,Events1!Attribute," ")), Events1.Attribute
HAVING (((First(Events1.Attribute)) Like "@*") AND ((Count(Events1.Attribute))>1));

Executing this gives:

The Batch Events query required a parameter (well it did for me, anyway, but I am no SQL guru – I’m sure someone out there can do a better job), its SQL looks like this:

PARAMETERS BatchID Text ( 255 );
SELECT Events1.Date_Time, Events1.State, Events1.Desc1, Events1.Desc2
FROM Events1
WHERE (((Events1.Attribute) Like "*" & [BatchID])) OR (((Events1.Desc1) Like "*" & [BatchID]))
ORDER BY Events1.Date_Time;

When I run the query, I get prompted for the BatchID:

And the results look like this:

The pressure drop data was captured with the LOG EVENT function in the FERM_PTEST phase.

So here's a way to generate some simple batch reports without dealing with those pesky EVT files. Head over to my website - I'll be consolidating the 3 posts about batch events/reports into a whitepaper.

Batch Events and 10.3

We’ve just finished successfully upgrading our DeltaV batch demo system to version 10.3, so I thought I’d share my hands-on experiences with some of the new and enhanced features.

So one of the first one’s I was excited about was the ability of the batch executive to have “significant batch events” flow to the event chronicle. And while I’m sure OSI is happy about this one, everyone should be.

Let’s be clear as to what “significant batch events” are – it’s NOT everything that’s currently in the batch journal, but all events associated with creating, starting, ending, and unloading of procedures, unit procedures, and operations get to the event chronicle.

Note in the screenshot below how the batch ID is displayed – you get both the ID entered by the operator and the internal ID DeltaV uses for tracking in the historian:

Now, silly me, I thought that once I upgraded to 10.3, I’d just run a batch and BAM, the data would be in the event chronicle. Well, I should have known better – you have to enable it. Where you might ask? About the last place I’d look, but now that I’ve found it, maybe I’ll save you some time.

Launch the Batch Application manager, and on the Batch Executive tab, select the Advanced tab, then select the Configuration Settings tab – here you’ll find all sorts of BE trivia selections. Scroll down to the Enable Alarm and Events Journaling, and double click it: