About the plant hierarchy

The plant hierarchy is an ISA-95-compliant folder structure that represents the processes and equipment of the plant. This folder structure can have an unlimited number of subfolders.

Note: A good practice is to convert the Applications folders of your plant hierarchy to the new folders and work centers where it is relevant to do so.To learn how to convert Applications folders, see Convert Applications folders.

Guidelines

Follow these guidelines when you create the plant hierarchy:

• The plant hierarchy is the first item to build when you create a project. Configure the project only after you establish the plant hierarchy.

• Structure the plant hierarchy according to the ISA-95 Equipment Hierarchy Model.

• The plant hierarchy describes the physical structure of the plant, such as process areas and the equipment that they contain.

• Aim to keep the plant hierarchy basic, but still provide the means to collect the data that you want. After you establish the process areas, the equipment that you add to the plant hierarchy depends on the level of detail that you require.

• Each folder contains an EquipmentType property, see About equipment types. Although it is not compulsory to assign an equipment type to each folder, doing so stops you from having to assign cause code lookup lists and classifications at each individual location in the plant hierarchy.

• Keep track of the types of causes that would be appropriate for each equipment type you use. Later, you can add them to the cause code lookup lists and subsequently relate them to each equipment type in the relationship matrices.

Related topics

• Basic steps to create a plant hierarchy

• Add and configure the Enterprise folder

• Add and configure a Site folder

• Add and configure the cause code lookup list

• About the relationship matrix