An industrial integrated development environment (IDE) comprises a development interface that affords a user a great deal of control over the editing tools, workspace canvases, and project information rendered at a given time. The industrial IDE system also includes various graphical features that assist the user to easily discern the various online and offline states of industrial control programs developed using the IDE system. Collaboration tools supported by the IDE system facilitate communicative and coordinated editing of control programs by multiple developers, and the IDE system conveys the resulting online and offline states of these programs using intuitive graphical indicators.

A method includes obtaining, using a human-machine interface (HMI), a first input corresponding to a selection of an image of a workpiece stored in a relational database and one or more workpiece parameters, where the one or more workpiece parameters include sequence information, workpiece option information, operator instruction information, or a combination thereof. The method includes obtaining, using the HMI, a second input corresponding to a selection of one or more fixture indicators and one or more fixture indicator parameters. The method includes superimposing, using the HMI, the one or more fixture indicators on the image of the workpiece based on the second input to generate a workpiece instruction image and generating an object from among a plurality of objects stored in the relational database based on a predefined class associated with the plurality of workpieces, the first input, and the workpiece instruction image.

A system and method for implementing a control process within a process control system and resolving inconsistencies during execution of the control process includes loading the logical structure of the control process, loading a plurality of instantiation objects or processes when the control process is instantiated, using the instantiation objects to instantiate a procedural element of the control process as the control process calls for the procedural element during execution, executing the procedural element as part of the control process, and deconstructing the procedural element as execution of the procedural element is completed during execution of the control process. Resolution of inconsistencies includes executing a first model of an entity in a controller, executing a second model of the entity in an execution engine, detecting a difference between the models, generating a prompt and receiving an operation instruction to continue the process or abort the process.

A method for controlling real world objects in an industrial installation, which is performed in a server node and includes the steps of: receiving a connection establishment request having a user identity; authenticating the user identity; establishing a connection; receiving a service request, wherein the service request includes a reference to an aspect object and a reference to an aspect of the aspect object; forwarding the service request and the user identity to a service dispatcher module; determining a target service provider from the reference to the aspect object by querying a directory server module; and sending the service request and the user identity to the target service provider.

Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture are disclosed to setup single-use equipment/processes. An example disclosed herein includes configuring a control interface via an object-oriented programming interface, the object-oriented programming interface including an object class representative of a single-use component in the single-use process. The example method also includes activating a single-use object in the control interface by detecting all ports associated with the single-use component are connected, and verifying the single-use component.

A program editing device edits a machining program in which a machining path along which a wire electrode of a wire electrical discharge machine machines a workpiece is defined. The machining program includes a plurality of blocks corresponding to respective multiple partial paths into which the machining path is divided, each of the blocks including path information indicating the corresponding partial path. The program editing device includes an analyzer analyzing the machining program and thereby identifying a predetermined shape pattern formed by a series of the multiple partial paths in the machining path, an information generator generating shape information corresponding to the identified predetermined shape pattern, and an editor inserting the shape information into the machining program.

A production line for manufacturing a building block, which includes at least one component, the production line including: a central conveyor line; at least one feeding line for feeding the at least one component to the central conveyor line; a manufacturing tool set for processing the at least one component; and a control unit for controlling the central conveyor line, the feeding line, and/or the manufacturing tool set. The controlling at least one of the central conveyor line, the feeding line, and/or the manufacturing tool set includes: retrieving an asset-information about the at least one component and/or the manufacturing tool set, conveying the at least one component according to the asset-information by the feeding line to the central conveyor line, retrieving a processing-information and/or a manufacturing tool set information about processing the at least one component, and processing the at least one component by the manufacturing tool set.

An industrial plant module-based engineering method includes the following processes. The process is for duplicating a source engineering template having one or more source child templates to create a duplicated engineering template having one or more duplicated child templates, without duplicating any instances. The process is for selecting at least one child instance instantiated from the source engineering template and having an original link to the source engineering template. The process is for changing the original link into a new link between the selected at least one child instance and the duplicated engineering template. The selected at least one child instance has the new link to the duplicated engineering template and is free of the original link to the source engineering template, and wherein unselected one or more child instances remain to have the original link to the source engineering template.

An industrial plant module-based engineering method includes the following processes. The process is for duplicating a source engineering template having one or more source child templates to create a duplicated engineering template having one or more duplicated child templates, without duplicating any instances. The process is for selecting at least one child instance instantiated from the source engineering template and having an original link to the source engineering template. The process is for changing the original link into a new link between the selected at least one child instance and the duplicated engineering template. The selected at least one child instance has the new link to the duplicated engineering template and is free of the original link to the source engineering template, and wherein unselected one or more child instances remain to have the original link to the source engineering template.

An industrial plant module-based engineering system includes a group module library navigator that contains: a plurality of group class modules and a respective plurality of child class modules under an associated group class module of the plurality of group class modules. A group module instantiation engine is configured to instantiate the group class module with reflecting a hierarchy of the group class modules to generate, in an application structure navigator, a group application module (group APM) and a hierarchy of the group application module (group APM) from the group class module, and to instantiate the child class module to generate, in the application structure navigator, a child application module (child APM) from the child class module. The group module update engine is configured to update the allocation of each group class module and a respective topology of the complex loops of each group class module.