Overview
Categories provide a structured way of dealing with data or functionalities in a complex industrial system. By grouping related items together, users can more effectively manage, analyze, and act on the data and functionalities in the system.
The application of categories can substantially benefit a company, primarily by enhancing the efficiency, clarity, and control of various operations.
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Understanding Categories
Overview
Categories are powerful organizational features that function as metadata labels for data items and application objects. They streamline project organization by grouping related items, facilitating efficient data management, especially in large systems.
Creating categories involves assigning a specific label to relevant tags or objects, which can then be used as a filter or sorting parameter. For instance, in a factory setting, you may have categories like "Conveyor Belts" or "Robotic Arms", with related data points assigned to their respective categories.
Utilizing categories involves creating a category, assigning relevant items to the category, and then using these categories to filter and sort your data. This ability to view data selectively enhances project manageability.
For instance, in an energy grid management project, you could have categories such as "Generation", "Transmission", and "Distribution". When you need to analyze data from the generation process, you will filter by the "Generation" category, making it easier to focus on relevant data. Similarly, in a factory with multiple production lines, categories can help monitor and manage each line separately.
Feature Highlights
Categories can profoundly impact a company's operational efficiency, productivity, and bottom line by providing a structured, organized way to manage data and functions. Here's how:
- Business Operations Improvement: By categorizing different elements of business operations, a company can streamline processes, quickly identify inefficiencies, and better manage resources. Categories can also help to consolidate data for more insightful reporting, leading to data-driven decisions.
- Process Control & Management: Categorization allows for better manufacturing or process control management. Grouping related assets or processes together can enhance oversight and enable quicker adjustments in response to changes or issues. This results in more efficient production reduces downtime, and significantly improves productivity.
- Asset Health Monitoring: Categories can help maintain the health of your assets more effectively. By segmenting data based on equipment type or location, you can more easily monitor individual machines' or entire systems' condition and performance. This aids in scheduling maintenance activities and can help predict potential equipment failures before they happen, a practice known as predictive maintenance.
- Enhanced Decision Making: With categorized data, decision-making processes can be improved as relevant information is easier to find and understand. This allows for quicker, more informed decisions, thereby increasing the agility of the business.
- Better Risk Management: By categorizing alarms or issues based on their severity or the area of the business they affect, the company can prioritize its response and manage risks more effectively.
- Efficient Training: For new employees or users of the system, categories can simplify the learning process. Organizing functions and data into logical groups can make the system more comprehensible, shortening the learning curve.
- Improved Regulatory Compliance: For industries where compliance with certain regulations is required, categories can assist in tracking and reporting necessary data, thereby making it easier to meet regulatory standards.
- Cost Savings: Overall, improved efficiency and productivity, combined with the ability to predict and prevent equipment failures, can lead to significant cost savings for a company.
Working with Categories
Create a Category
To create a category, go to the Project Explorer modules sidebar, double-click on the Categories folder, and add a new one. Inform the category name and description, then click OK.
Assign Items to Categories
To assign items to a category, select the item in the Project Explorer, go to the Properties window, and select the Category tab. From there, you can select the category to which you want to assign the item.
Display Categories on the runtime
You can use the Category Navigator widget to display categories on the runtime. To add the Category Navigator widget, go to the Toolbox, select the Category Navigator widget, and drag and drop it onto the runtime screen.
Organize the Display of Categories
You can customize the display of categories on the runtime by adjusting the properties of the Category Navigator widget. For example, you can set the width and height of the widget, change the font size and color, and specify the order in which categories are displayed.
Using Categories, you can organize and group items on runtime, making it easier to manage and navigate large and complex projects.
You can create a dictionary of Categories to classify engineering objects. Most configuration tables have the Category column, where you can apply one or more categories to that object.
Create user-defined category labels that you can use as tag metadata. Categories are useful for filtering when creating the project and during runtime.
- Go to Project Settings → Categories.
- Add and edit the desired categories for this project.
To apply a Category to a Tag or any other object:
- Open the DataGrid Configuration Table for that object.
- Set the column Category to be visible.
- Edit the contents of that column. It is possible to select multiple rows.
Using Categories on Runtime
The object categories can also be accessed during runtime for filtering and other custom applications from Category.
A list of all the categories that are defined in the project during runtime is available in the property Server.Categories.
Categories examples
Here's how Functional, Logical, and Semantic categories might be used in an industrial automation or process control context:
Functional Categories
These are related to the functional responsibilities or tasks in an automation system:
- Safety Monitoring: Ensuring that all safety protocols are adhered to, and triggering alerts or shutdowns in case of breaches.
- Resource Management: Monitoring and controlling the utilization of resources to ensure efficiency.
- Inventory Management: Tracking the movement and storage of materials in the factory.
- Energy Management: Optimizing energy usage to reduce costs and environmental impact.
- Production Scheduling: Automating and optimizing the scheduling of different production runs.
- Waste Management: Monitoring and managing the disposal or recycling of waste.
- Environmental Control: Managing factors like temperature, humidity, or pressure in the factory.
- Supply Chain Management: Ensuring that the flow of materials from suppliers to the factory and from the factory to customers is efficient and timely.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring operations comply with all relevant industry regulations and standards.
- Labor Management: Automating human labor scheduling and task assignment where needed
Logical Categories
These involve the organization of the software's data and operations according to logical principles:
- By Data Type: Organizing data according to whether it's temperature, pressure, flow rate, etc.
- By Process Step: Grouping controls or data points according to the process's steps.
- By Time: Organizing data or operations according to when they occur or are relevant.
- By Machine: Grouping data or controls according to the machine they pertain to.
- By Location: Organizing information based on the physical location within the factory.
- By Priority: Organizing tasks or alarms based on their urgency or importance.
- By Role: Grouping user access and controls based on the roles of different users.
- By Product: Organizing data or controls based on the product being made.
- By System: Grouping data or operations based on the specific system (e.g., HVAC, conveyor system, etc.)
- By Vendor: Organizing machine controls or data based on the machine's vendor
Semantic Categories
These involve categorizing based on meaning or context:
- By Quality: Data could be categorized based on the quality of the product it relates to.
- By Process Outcome: Data or controls could be grouped based on the outcome they contribute to.
- By Customer: Processes or data could be categorized based on the customer they're relevant to.
- By Order: Operations or data could be grouped based on their fulfilling order.
- By Risk Level: Tasks or alarms could be categorized based on the level of risk they represent.
- By Operational Efficiency: Grouping operations or processes based on their efficiency.
- By Cost: Grouping operations, processes, or equipment based on their associated costs.
- By Reliability: Categorizing equipment or processes based on their reliability or failure rate.
- By Sustainability Impact: Grouping processes or operations based on their environmental impact.
- By Strategic Importance: Grouping tasks, data, or controls based on their strategic importance to the business.
These categories provide multiple perspectives to view and control the system and can help operators better understand and manage.
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