JP4988612B2 - Information distribution system and information distribution method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an information distribution system and an information distribution method, and more particularly to an information distribution system and an information distribution method suitable for information distribution related to facility update of a control system.

  A control system represented by a distributed control system (hereinafter abbreviated as DCS) obtains information on a control target, performs control calculations such as process control, and transmits the calculation results to the control target. For example, as is known in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6-250869, it is composed of a lot of hardware, software and various parts.

  In such a DCS, once the DCS is purchased, it is necessary to perform a partial update or a new update for a part failure that has passed its preventive maintenance or warranty period.

For DCS partial updates and new updates, DCS equipment information at the time of delivery to customers owned by DCS manufacturers, sales activities, periodic inspections, etc., are collected, and information on current customer DCS equipment status information is collected and proposed updates Is often called. In recent years, there are many cases where the customer himself purchases parts necessary for renewing the equipment and remodels himself / herself in terms of cost.
JP-A-6-250869

  As a problem peculiar to DCS, the lifetime of products is long, but in recent years, many products have been discontinued due to the rapid life cycle of peripheral devices and electronic components. On the other hand, customers have renewed to reduce costs. It has become slower, making it difficult to effectively update equipment necessary for maintenance of equipment, such as replacement of faulty parts that have passed the warranty period and switching to alternatives.

  As described above, when the DCS is purchased once and the DCS is remodeled by the customer, information on the appropriate partial update in accordance with the customer's own DCS equipment situation is insufficient in the subsequent partial update.

  However, even if the customer modifies the DCS by himself, the failure rate of discontinued products and parts has a lot of information that the DCS manufacturer has on its own, and information distribution related to the appropriate update according to the DCS equipment status Is desired.

  The DCS maker also lacked the marketing information of the update proposal most popular with the customer among the update proposals according to the current equipment status of the customer's DCS. In addition, the development of new DCS products was performed in accordance with the timing of switching over the existing years of DCS and the status of discontinued products.

Marketing information of update proposals that are most popular with customers is desired because DCS manufacturers can also make efficient equipment update proposals. In addition, the development of new DCS products that are frequently requested by customers has been desired.
In view of the above problems, an object of the present invention is to provide an information distribution system and an information distribution method capable of distributing information related to appropriate updating.

In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention, the customer control system information is stored in the customer database, the part information corresponding to the control system is stored in the product database, the update proposal information is stored in the update proposal database, Information is acquired from the product database according to information of the customer's control system, predetermined update proposal information is selected from the update proposal database based on the acquired information, and the selected information is networked Configured to transmit via.
More specifically, it is an information distribution system for distributing information to a customer who owns a DCS, where an engineering work station (hereinafter referred to as EWS) of the DCS and a distribution source of the information are The apparatus includes a DCS EWS database (hereinafter abbreviated as “DB”), a product DB, an update proposal DB, and a communication network that connects the EWS and the apparatus.

  In the above configuration, the update proposal information is distributed to the EWS owned by the customer based on the update data of the EWS DB accompanying the modification of the DCS.

  In the above-described configuration, the configuration is such that the customer who owns the DCS estimates and ships the parts by selecting the update proposal distributed to the EWS owned by the customer.

  In the above configuration, by selecting an update proposal distributed to the EWS owned by the customer, a recommended update package is created, and information about the update proposal including the recommended update package is distributed to the EWS of the customer who owns the same DCS. It was configured to

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it becomes possible to distribute the update proposal according to the equipment condition about control systems, such as DCS. More specifically, it is possible to select the update contents according to the customer's budget and the update plan. Further, the DCS manufacturer can also obtain information on proposals frequently requested by customers, can concentrate developments with many requests, and can bring up the contents of update proposals desired by customers in terms of cost. As a result, it is possible to reduce the cost for updating the customer's own equipment.

  Hereinafter, embodiments for carrying out the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a business model applied by information distribution of an update proposal obtained by applying the present invention. FIG. 2 shows a time-series flow chart of a network applied by information distribution of update proposals. 1 includes a customer terminal A10, a customer terminal B11, and a manufacturer terminal 12. In addition, each arrow indicates the direction of the procedure, but this embodiment is realized by a communication network.

  That is, the maker terminal 12 receives the DB update data 13 from the customer terminal A10, and the maker terminal 12 transmits the update distribution information distribution 14. The customer terminal A10 receives the update proposal information distribution 14 and transmits the update proposal selection information 15. The maker terminal 12 receives it, and transmits information 16 for estimating and sending parts.

  On the other hand, when receiving the update proposal selection information 15 from the customer terminal A10, the manufacturer terminal 12 creates a recommended update package 17 as marketing information. The recommended update package creation 17 is transmitted as the information distribution 14 of the update proposal to the customer terminal B of the same system. In this way, a network is constructed for information distribution of update proposals in accordance with the customer's DCS equipment status.

  FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram showing a schematic configuration of an embodiment of an information distribution system that makes an update proposal, which is an object of the present invention.

  In FIG. 3, this embodiment shows an EWS 20 owned by the customer A as the terminal system of the customer A, an EWS 21 owned by the customer B as the terminal system of the customer B, and a customer owned by the manufacturer as the terminal system of the manufacturer. DCS EWS DB, product DB and update proposal DB 22 (or abbreviated as device 22) 22, EWS 20, EWS 21 and device 22 and communication network 23 connecting them.

  Therefore, the flow of a system for distributing information of update proposals to customers having DCS EWS will be described with reference to FIG.

  Here, the case where the customer has not remodeled after purchasing DCS will be described first. In this case, the contents of the DB of the EWS 20 owned by the customer A and the contents of the DB of the apparatus 22 having the EWS DB of the DCS of the customer owned by the manufacturer are the same. I do.

  Next, a case where the customer himself remodels the DCS will be described. When the customer modifies the DCS and updates the DB of the EWS 20 owned by the customer A, DB update data is transmitted from the EWS 20 to the device 22. As a result, the contents of the EWS 20 owned by the customer A and the contents of the apparatus 22 having the EWS DB of the DCS of the customer owned by the manufacturer match, and based on the apparatus 22, information on the update proposal is distributed.

  In addition, distribution of information on update proposals from manufacturers, selection of update proposals from customers, and sending of estimates are performed via the communication network 23.

  Further, FIG. 4 shows a DB data file owned by the manufacturer, and is used particularly for distributing information on update proposals. The customer DB 30 is composed of a customer EWS DB 31 and DB update data 32, and the product DB 33 is a new product information of various types, a new DCS product DB 34, and various types of DCS parts being manufactured. Discontinued product information DB 35 that is discontinued product information, component failure rate data DB 36 that is failure rate information of various types of DCS components, estimated data 37 that is past estimated data in various types of DCS, The update proposal DB 39 is composed of various recommended update packages 40, various field survey proposals 41, various spare part recommendations 42, and various types. The partial update proposal 43, various batch update proposals 44, and various marketing information 45.

  Further, in the above-described invention, a procedure for determining the information distribution of the update proposal will be described. In the above information distribution, customers often renew facilities at the same time as regular inspections conducted at regular intervals on the customer side. In particular, information necessary for facility renewal may be distributed before this period. Since it is desired, information distribution will be examined by the logic shown in FIG. 5 by X months of the nearest periodic inspection. Here, X is determined by the lead time from parts arrangement to shipment.

  In addition, among the parts data of the customer's EWS DB of the customer DB, a spare part is recommended if the production is discontinued or the part failure rate becomes the wear failure period by X months later. The case where the update is performed in units including spare parts recommended as a partial update.

  That is, the following operation is executed in the manufacturer terminal in the information distribution logic diagram of FIG. First, based on the customer's EWS DB 31 and DB update data 32, the customer's DCS is specified, and the new product information DB 34, the discontinued product information DB 35, and the part failure data DB 36 corresponding to the specified DCS. , Corresponding data is read out from the estimate data 37 and the part shipment data 38. With reference to these read data, corresponding data is read out from the recommended update package 40, the field survey proposal 41, the spare part recommendation 42, the partial update proposal 43, the collective update proposal 44, and the marketing information 45. In step S1, it is determined whether or not the spare part recommendation exceeds A% of the partial update by X months later. If it does not exceed A% (No), the spare part recommendation, partial update and batch update proposal information distribution is performed. Is called. If it exceeds A% (Yes), it is determined in step S2 whether or not the partial update exceeds B% of the batch update by X months later. When it does not exceed B% (No), partial update and batch update proposal information distribution is performed. When it exceeds B% (Yes), the information distribution of the batch update proposal is performed.

  Further, in the above invention, a procedure for creating a recommended update package will be described. When the update proposal information is distributed to the customer terminal A, a recommended update package is created by combining only the items for which the update proposal has been selected. When this information distribution of the update proposal is performed to the customer terminal B, it is distributed together with the examination of the information distribution logic of FIG.

  As described above, the information distribution is examined X months before the nearest periodic inspection, and the information distribution of the appropriate update proposal is performed before this period. In addition, it is possible to expand the content of proposals preferred by customers, and in particular, to solve the most important problems satisfactorily in building a trust relationship between manufacturers and customers.

  In addition, although DCS was invented as an example, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and various modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention.

It is the schematic of the business model applied by the information delivery of the update proposal formed by applying this invention. It is a flowchart of the business model applied by the information delivery of the update proposal formed by applying this invention. It is a system diagram showing a schematic configuration of an information distribution system for update proposals to which the present invention is applied. It is a data file figure which showed the data file of DB which a maker has. It is a logic diagram of information distribution for explanation of the present invention.

Explanation of symbols

10 Customer A
11,30 Customer DB
12 Manufacturer 13, 32 DB update data 14 Information distribution of update proposal 15 Selection of update proposal 16 Estimate and dispatch of parts 17 Recommended update package creation 20 EWS owned by customer A
21 EWS owned by customer B
22 Device (device) having DCS EWS DB, product DB and update proposal DB of customer owned by manufacturer
23 Communication Network 31 Customer EWS DB
33 Product DB
34 New product information 35 Discontinued product information DB
36 Parts failure rate data 37 Estimated data 38 Parts dispatch data 39 Update proposal DB
40 Recommended Update Package 41 Field Survey Proposal 42 Spare Parts Recommendation 43 Partial Update Proposal 44 Batch Update Proposal 45 Marketing Information

Claims (3)

An information distribution system for transmitting update information related to a customer control system,
A customer database storing information of the customer's control system;
A product database that stores component information according to the control system;
An update proposal database for storing a plurality of update proposal information;
An operation unit that acquires information from the product database according to information of the customer's control system and selects predetermined update proposal information from the update proposal database based on the acquired information;
A transmission unit for transmitting the selected information via a network,
The plurality of update proposal information stored in the update proposal database includes at least spare part recommendation information for proposing spare parts of parts, partial update information for proposing partial updates in units, and batch update proposals Including bulk update information,
The calculation unit determines whether the spare part recommendation information in the customer's control system exceeds a predetermined ratio by a predetermined period before the predetermined period, and if not, the preliminary recommendation information and Select the partial update information and send information to the customer,
If the predetermined ratio is exceeded, it is further determined whether the partial update information in the customer's control system exceeds the second predetermined ratio by comparison with the batch update information before the predetermined period. If not, select the partial update information and the batch update information and send information to the customer,
If the second predetermined ratio is exceeded, the collective information is selected and information is transmitted to a customer .   2. The information distribution system according to claim 1, wherein the product database is updated as the customer control system is modified.   2. The information distribution system according to claim 1, wherein estimate information or parts shipment information is transmitted in accordance with the selected update proposal.

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