PI AF asset hierarchies

The goal is to create an asset (element) hierarchy that is going to make sense to the people who need to use it. If you have different types of users, then you might need more than one tree structure.

If you are just getting started, do not try to do everything at once. Create a hierarchy for a subset of your assets. For example, you might start by modeling all your tanks, or alternatively, your equipment in a single plant, or your equipment from a particular manufacturer. Another approach would be to create a hierarchy for a particular type of user.

Gather information:

• What assets will be included in the tree? In other words, what types of equipment do you want to model?

• Who is going to need to find assets in this tree? Maintenance engineers? Process control engineers? Operators? For each type of user, what tasks will they need to perform?

• What assets are important to each user and what types of information will they need? Consider asking a few representative users of each type about what data they need to access and how. This should inform your organizational strategy.

Again, start small. You might start with one type of user. For example, suppose maintenance engineers need to use the model. If you have several plants, each with a group of maintenance engineers responsible for the equipment at that plant, then you should probably include a tree that organizes equipment by plant.

From there, you might ask some maintenance engineers how they would want to access the equipment information. Perhaps they usually look for assets by equipment type but sometimes they need to search by manufacturer. You could create parallel trees, one organized by equipment type and another by manufacturer. Each asset would then appear in each tree. Or you could organize the tree by equipment type and then use categories to label each asset by manufacturer.

After you create the hierarchy for a type of user, you might have a few of them try it out for a period of time, then take their feedback to improve the hierarchy. You can always change a hierarchy.

Note: When thinking about users, remember that the element hierarchy might also be exposed in certain PI client applications. Consider the users of those applications as well. For example, AVEVA PI Vision exposes the tree for users searching for related assets. In AVEVA PI Vision, related assets are elements built from the same template.

Videos

For information on how to create elements, watch this video:

For information on how to build element hierarchies, watch this video: