Re: [foxboro] I/A Batch Unix to I/A Batch Windows

David,

We recently converted from a 12 year old FoxBatch to I/A Batch and from a
Unix/Nodebus system to Windows and mesh. We had Invensys stage the
conversion in Houston. They had engineers in Canada and Fox Mass work on
the conversion. We ran into two previous features that are still in the
documentation but are evidently no longer supported:

1.    Wherever we had "do-one" branches in our recipes, we had to add a
"Wait" transition to the right hand branch to force the left hand branch to
be evaluated. We have phases that are executed only under certain
circumstances on the left with transition logic to describe those
circumstances (e.g. first batch after a product change). Then the right
hand branch just skips around. During the FAT we found that the left branch
transition logic was true, but the phase didn't get executed. The
documentation says that each branch is evaluated from left to right until a
true one is found. A "Wait" transition on the branch around initially
evaluates false, so the left hand branch actually gets evaluated. We put a
CAR in for this.
2.    We were using the Process Logger to collect report data. The Invensys
engineers weren't familiar with the Process Log database and didn't convert
it until we found data were missing from the reports. The run time
application had to be added to the list to start up with the others. Once
the database was converted, and we attempted to use the Process Logger,
IALink failed. It seems once IALink says it's running, it isn't really
ready to serve the Process Logger. As soon as the logger started IALink
failed. The solution was to convert all the logger tags to phase
parameters. For data that were recorded at the beginning of a phase, the
sequence had to be revised to save the data for later recording at the end
of the phase. We put a CAR in to restore the Process Logger according to
the current documentation. According to the Invensys engineers, no one else
uses the Process Log, so you probably won't have this problem.
3.    FoxBatch didn't have a batch environment. It just had a run-time
start/stop display. We had to add a "start" batch file and a "stop" batch
file to provide the same function in I/A Batch, and to restart I/A Batch
Environment and Run-time applications whenever the host AW boots up.
4.    Our custom "High-Availability" FoxBatch installation had an overall
health display, so that the operator could tell when both hosts were
available and which one was the backup. There wasn't a similar display
provided with I/A Batch. The shared variables that are provided indicate
the status of the batch environment applications and database, not the
run-time apps. We got our Invensys project engineers to add a status
overlay to show the status of both hosts, including their run-time
applications.
5.    Our FoxBatch installation included a custom application to replace a
similar function that was provided by EasyBatch. (Our operators don't use
the Batch Schedule display.) It automatically created, initialized, and
started a series of batches of the same recipe, one at a time, and
automatically assigned the campaign, lot, and batch numbers. Most of this
was done with a HLBL sequence for each kettle that interfaced with the
batch management via TIM tags. The application included a display that
provided a pick list of approved recipes using a function in the FoxBatch
Tool Kit. No such function is available under the Windows version.
Everything worked as before except the recipe pick list. One of the
Invensys engineers had to write a HLBL program to create the list and
distribute it to all the work stations.
6.    The automatic batch numbering gets the campaign and lot from the
station block (year and month). It gets the batch number from a integer
block that is incremented every time a new batch is created. Under the Unix
version, the next batch number was reset to 1 at the beginning of each
month with a crontab task. It was fairly trivial to add a scheduled task to
do the same thing under Windows. It didn't work for June, because I forgot
to add the task. It worked fine for July, though.

Depending on how customized your installation is, your conversion should be
much less difficult, since you already have I/A Batch. Beware of Solaris
features that you take for granted, though, and their Windows counterparts.

Jerry Hidahl
Process Control Engineer
Port Neches Performance Products
Huntsman Corporation

 
 
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