Case Study: University OSIsoft PI System

A project designed  to evolve over time, provide additional data services, and to be used by a growing number of users. 

 

Project Lead

Steve_Comeau.jpg

Steve Comeau, Senior Manufacturing Intelligence Developer

 My Hallam Story 

 

A Data System for Reporting, Trending and Analysis

Manufacturing Intelligence

UVM campusview.jpg

A university in New England has a large campus with many buildings, research facilities, and activity centers. The university facilities group needed a data system to aggregate utility and HVAC data from multiple control systems into a common time-series historian database for data reporting, trending, and data analytics. The OSIsoft PI System was chosen. 

The university asked Hallam-ICS to design and install the system; configure the system components; and develop reports, calculations, and visualizations needed to obtain useful information for the system. This is a long-term project that is designed  to evolve over time, provide additional data services, and to be used by a growing number of users.

The project required the following expertise:

  • System design and installation
  • OSIsoft software installation and configuration
  • PI Asset Framework (AF) programming
  • PI ProcessBook and DataLink VBA programming
  • Excel VBA programming for reports
  • PI Vision programming for screens
  • Understanding the field measurements to find and resolve issues with invalid and suspect data.

The Historian system was required to:

  • Interface with multiple systems to obtain data from Modbus devices, Honeywell OPC Server, Delta-V PI, and a Johnson Controls BACnet system.
  • Perform complex calculations and totalization for energy usage reports.
  • Use custom reports in Excel for reports on electricity, chilled water, and stream usage.
  • Trend point data using PI ProcessBook, with a system hierarchy defined in an MS Access database.
  • Organize assets and attributes in PI AF for easy drill-down retrieval of data.
  • Display real-time screens and trends in PI Vision.

 

The project required the use of the following PI System modules and skills:

  • Install and configure the PI Data Archive, PI Inter- faces, PI security, and PI Vision web application.
  • Create a tag database and system hierarchy database.
  • PI AF development for configuring system assets, attributes, and analysis.
  • Develop VBA applications using PI ProcessBook and DataLink in Excel.
  • Install, test, and backup Microsoft SQL Server.

 New call-to-action