A method of managing oilfield activity with a control system is provided having a plurality of virtual sensors and integrating the virtual sensors into a virtual sensor network. The method includes determining interdependencies among the virtual sensors, obtaining operational information from the virtual sensors, and providing virtual sensor output to the control system based on the determined interdependencies and the operational information.

A Multi-Purpose Dynamic Simulation and run-time Control platform includes a virtual process environment coupled to a physical process environment, where components/nodes of the virtual and physical process environments cooperate to dynamically perform run-time process control of an industrial process plant and/or simulations thereof. Virtual components may include virtual run-time nodes and/or simulated nodes. The MPDSC includes an I/O Switch which delivers I/O data between virtual and/or physical nodes, e.g., by using publish/subscribe mechanisms, thereby virtualizing physical I/O process data delivery. Nodes serviced by the I/O Switch may include respective component behavior modules that are unaware as to whether or not they are being utilized on a virtual or physical node. Simulations may be performed in real-time and even in conjunction with run-time operations of the plant, and/or simulations may be manipulated as desired (speed, values, administration, etc.). The platform simultaneously supports simulation and run-time operations and interactions/intersections therebetween.

Apparatus and method for controlling and/or monitoring a technical installation for producing and/or processing metal, having an assistant program with at least one interface for connection to application programs, wherein the assistant program receives a request for an item of information relating to the installation from at least one requesting application program via the interface, wherein the assistant program can access a data model that provides a suggestion of which information can be provided by at least one further application program. The assistant program determining, based on the request and on the data model, which application program can provide the requested information, wherein the assistant program transmits the request to the at least one determined application program which can provide the requested information, wherein the assistant program receives a response from the determined application program, and wherein the assistant program outputs the received response to the requesting application program.

A Multi-Purpose Dynamic Simulation and run-time Control platform includes a virtual process environment coupled to a physical process environment, where components/nodes of the virtual and physical process environments cooperate to dynamically perform run-time process control of an industrial process plant and/or simulations thereof. Virtual components may include virtual run-time nodes and/or simulated nodes. The MPDSC includes an I/O Switch which delivers I/O data between virtual and/or physical nodes, e.g., by using publish/subscribe mechanisms, thereby virtualizing physical I/O process data delivery. Nodes serviced by the I/O Switch may include respective component behavior modules that are unaware as to whether or not they are being utilized on a virtual or physical node. Simulations may be performed in real-time and even in conjunction with run-time operations of the plant, and/or simulations may be manipulated as desired (speed, values, administration, etc.). The platform simultaneously supports simulation and run-time operations and interactions/intersections therebetween.

In a method for optimizing a modular system for technical functional units of a process engineering plant, a modular system is provided having components for configuring technical functional units. The modular system can be projected in a simulation environment such that each component can be represented based on its physical properties as a virtual component with corresponding parameters in the simulation environment. Parameters of the virtual components are varied in the simulation environment to determine a modified configuration of at least one technical functional unit using at least one of the virtual components with at least one varied parameter. The operation of the technical functional unit(s) is simulated with the modified configuration. A set of virtual components is determined from the virtual components with varied parameters based on results of the simulation. One or more components of the modular system are adapted based on the determined set of virtual components.

The present disclosure makes it possible to construct a production line of products using pieces of first equipment located in a geographical area and mobile second equipment. An information processing method tries to assign pieces of first equipment to a series of work processes to produce products based on the pieces of first equipment located in the geographical area and positions thereof, decides installation of pieces of second equipment to be assigned to a part of the series of work processes to which a part of the pieces of equipment cannot be assigned from among the pieces of first equipment when there is the part of the series of work processes to which the part of the pieces of equipment cannot be assigned from among the pieces of first equipment, outputs a request to transport the pieces of second equipment to an installation position in the geographical area.

In an approach to AI empowered factory automation using an industrial IoT, responsive to receiving a new production task, production requirements are input into an AI engine. Equipment and software containers are selected based on the AI model. An orchestration service is created, where the orchestration service collaborates the equipment and the software containers.

An apparatus, methods and systems for data collection in an industrial environment are disclosed. A monitoring system can include a data collector coupled to a plurality of sensors to collect data, a data storage structured to store a plurality of data collection management plans, a data acquisition circuit structured to interpret a plurality of detection values from the collected data, and a data analysis circuit structured to analyze the collected data and select one of the plurality of data collection management plans, wherein the selected one of the plurality of data collection management plans is selected is at least in part based on a data analysis of received data from the plurality of sensors.

A system for assisting an operator in operations of assembling/disassembling and/or change of configuration of an operating machine including a plurality of first areas provided with respective first pieces to be dismounted from the operating machine or configured to receive respective second pieces to be mounted on the operating machine. The system includes a support structure having a plurality of second areas provided with the second pieces or configured to receive the first pieces; a plurality of warning devices, each being associated to a respective area of the first areas and/or second areas; and a control unit operatively connected to the warning devices and configured to perform a predetermined sequence of commands correlated to operations of a predetermined sequence of operations of assembling/disassembling and/or change of configuration of the operating machine. The control unit is configured to selectively activate and deactivate the warning devices according to the sequence of commands.

A method for detecting misconfigured industrial automation devices within an operational technology (OT) network of programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and/or distributed control systems (DCSs), each PLC including one or more central processing unit (CPU) cards, one or more communication cards, and one or more input/out (I/O) cards, each I/O card controlling a machine or process in a physical network, the method including parsing a project file that includes information about a PLC and its configuration, and about the logic that runs on the PLC, generating a network layout configured in the project the, based on the results of the parsing, scanning the PLC including extracting information regarding the PLC configuration and the network layout, generating an actual network layout, based on the results of the scanning, and comparing the actual network layout with the network layout configured in the project file, to detect misconfigurations in the project file.