JP7688563B2 - Information providing device, information providing method, and program - Google Patents

Description

Embodiments of the present invention relate to an information providing device, an information providing method, and a program.

Conventionally, there is known a technique for customizing the display screen of a system that monitors a plant in order to efficiently monitor the operating status of the plant installed in an electric power facility or the like. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses a graphical configuration system that enables quick editing of reusable graphical elements when creating display graphics for use in user display of a plant monitoring system.

In the technology described in Patent Document 1, a lead graphics designer of a graphical configuration system creates a template graphical element having a quick configuration form, and other graphics designers edit the quick configuration form to obtain a desired graphical element. In this way, the conventional technology customizes an interface for monitoring the operating status of a plant at the data item level, but does not customize or model at a larger level that takes into account the thoughts and interests of the plant supervisor. As a result, the plant supervisor may need to perform tedious operations to obtain information of interest.

JP 2015-130174 A

The problem that this invention aims to solve is to provide an information providing device, an information providing method, and a program that can reduce the amount of operations that a plant monitor must perform to obtain information of interest.

The information providing device of the embodiment provides information on an electric power facility, which is a social infrastructure facility, based on information combining an object class, which is information that categorizes the type of the electric power facility by defining a plurality of data items, and one or more concerns, which are information that express a user's interest in the electric power facility. The information providing device includes an object class identification unit, a concern reception unit, an information provision type determination unit, and an information providing unit. The object class identification unit identifies the object class corresponding to the electric power facility in response to the user's designation of the electric power facility or the occurrence of a predetermined event for the electric power facility. The concern reception unit receives the concern designated by the user. The information provision type determination unit uses the identified combination of the object class and the received concern to search a database in which the combination of the object class and the concern is associated with an information provision type of information on the electric power facility, thereby determining the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the concern. The information providing unit provides information on the electric power facility according to the determined information provision type.

1 is a diagram showing an example of a configuration of a system 1 including an information providing device 100 according to an embodiment. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of a definition of an object class 160B stored in the storage unit 160. FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of an object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the storage unit 160. 4 is a diagram showing an example of a definition of a UI class 160D stored in the storage unit 160; FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of information provided according to a UI class 160D shown in FIG. 4. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing another example of the configuration of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the storage unit 160. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of data provided corresponding to concerns having an inclusion relationship. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of data provided corresponding to a concern having a transition relationship. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of data provided corresponding to concerns having an associative relationship. FIG. 13 illustrates another example of data provided corresponding to concerns having an associative relationship. 4 is a flowchart showing an example of a flow of a process executed by the information providing device 100. 1 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a system 1 including an information providing device 100 and an information design support device 200 according to an embodiment. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing another example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. FIG. 2 is a diagram showing another example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. FIG. 23 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining a containment relationship of concerns in a UI class 230C. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining a transition relationship of concerns in a UI class 230C. FIG. 23 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining an associative relationship of concerns in a UI class 230C. FIG. 23 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining an associative relationship of concerns in a UI class 230C.

The information providing device, information providing method, and program of the embodiment will be described below with reference to the drawings.

[Overall configuration]
1 is a diagram illustrating an example of a configuration of a system 1 including an information providing device 100 according to an embodiment. As illustrated in FIG. 1 , the system 1 includes, for example, a power facility 10, a terminal device 50, and the information providing device 100.

The power facility 10 is, for example, a power generation plant, which includes power equipment such as generators, turbines, pumps, valves, and boilers. In the following description, the power facility 10 is assumed to be a power generation plant, but the present invention is not limited to such a configuration and can generally be applied to facilities that have multiple equipment to be monitored.

The terminal device 50 is, for example, a computer device such as a personal computer, a tablet terminal, or a smartphone. The terminal device 50 accesses the information providing device 100 via the network NW and acquires information about each piece of power equipment installed in the power facility 10. The user of the terminal device 50 browses the acquired information about each piece of power equipment using a web browser on the terminal device 50, for example.

In the conventional technology, when a user wanted to view information about each power facility, the user would specify on the terminal device 50 the name or identification ID of the power facility 10 about which the user wanted to view information, and then check each data item of the corresponding power facility. In other words, the conventional technology provided information about the power facility to the user in units of data items, and did not provide information to the user in units of information that organically grouped multiple data items of the power facility based on the user's interest, such as "operation status," "operation status," and "accident status" (i.e., units of "concept level"). As described in detail below, the information providing device 100 of the embodiment provides information about the power facility based on information that combines an object class, which is information that categorizes the type of power facility by defining multiple data items, and a concern, which is information that represents the user's interest in the power facility, thereby enabling the user to be provided with information in units of "concept level".

[Configuration of information providing device]
The information providing device 100 is a server device that provides the terminal device 50 with information on each piece of power equipment installed in the power facility 10, and includes, for example, an information acquiring unit 110, an object class identifying unit 120, a concern receiving unit 130, an information provision type determining unit 140, an information providing unit 150, and a storage unit 160. The information acquiring unit 110, the object class identifying unit 120, the concern receiving unit 130, the information provision type determining unit 140, and the information providing unit 150 are realized by, for example, a hardware processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) executing a program (software). Some or all of these components may be realized by hardware (including circuitry) such as an LSI (Large Scale Integration), an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), or a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), or may be realized by cooperation between software and hardware. The program may be stored in advance in a storage device (a storage device having a non-transient storage medium) such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or a flash memory, or may be stored in a removable storage medium (a non-transient storage medium) such as a DVD or a CD-ROM, and may be installed by mounting the storage medium in a drive device. The storage unit 160 is, for example, a HDD, a flash memory, a random access memory (RAM), or the like. The storage unit 160 stores, for example, time-series data 160A, an object class 160B, an object class/concern correspondence map 160C, and a UI class 160D. In this embodiment, for convenience of explanation, an example in which the functions of the information providing device 100 are realized by a single physical server will be described, but the present invention is not limited to such a limitation. For example, the functions of the information providing device 100 may be implemented as software on a cloud-type platform provided by multiple physical servers.

The information acquisition unit 110 acquires time series data on each piece of power equipment from the power facility 10 via the network NW, and stores the data in the memory unit 160 as time series data 160A. For example, the information acquisition unit 110 acquires time series data such as the flow rate, head, and ON/OFF state of a pump installed in the power facility 10, time series data such as the opening degree, temperature, and ON/OFF state of a valve installed in the power facility 10, and time series data such as the rotation speed, output, and ON/OFF state of a turbine installed in the power facility 10.

Although not shown in FIG. 1, the memory unit 160 also stores in advance equipment ledger data for each piece of power equipment installed in the power facility 10 in addition to the time series data 160A. The equipment ledger data refers to data for managing each piece of power equipment in the power facility 10. For example, in the case of a pump, the equipment ledger data includes data such as the identification number, model number, serial number, manufacturer, manager, and installation date. The equipment ledger data may be periodically updated by the information acquisition unit 110 by receiving the latest data from the power facility 10, or may be manually input and updated by the manager of the information providing device 100.

The object class identification unit 120 identifies the object class 160B corresponding to the power equipment when the user specifies, on the terminal device 50, the name or identification ID of the power equipment about which the user wishes to view information, or when a specific event (e.g., an accident) occurs for the power equipment. For example, when the user inputs or selects the identification ID of a condensate pump on the terminal device 50, the object class identification unit 120 identifies the object class 160B corresponding to the condensate pump based on the correspondence between the identification ID and the object class 160B stored in advance. Also, for example, when a specific event occurs for the power equipment, the object class identification unit 120 identifies the object class 160B corresponding to the power equipment for which the event occurred based on the correspondence between the identification information of the power equipment stored in advance and the object class 160B.

Figure 2 is a diagram showing an example of the definition of object class 160B stored in storage unit 160. Figure 2 shows the definition of object class 160B of pump A as an example. As shown in Figure 2, object class 160B is, for example, information in which properties and formats are associated. In the case of Figure 2, object class 160B of pump A includes items such as identification number, model number, serial number, manufacturer, person in charge, status, installation date, flow rate, and head as properties. The identification number, for example, has a character string type and is a number for uniquely identifying the power equipment. The model number, for example, has a character string type and is a number for identifying the model of the power equipment. The serial number, for example, has a numeric type and is a number for identifying the product number of the power equipment. The manufacturer, for example, has a character string type and is information for identifying the manufacturer who manufactured the power equipment. The person in charge, for example, has a character string type and is information for identifying the person in charge of managing the power equipment. The status, for example, has a Boolean type and takes a value of true when the power equipment is in operation and a value of false when the power equipment is in a stopped state. The installation date, for example, has a date type and is information indicating the date on which the power equipment was installed in the power facility 10. The flow rate, for example, has a numeric type and is information indicating the amount of liquid that can be discharged per unit time when the pump is operated. The head, for example, has a numeric type and is information indicating the height to which the pump pumps the liquid. In the case of a pump having the object class 160B of pump A defined in FIG. 2, the identification number, model number, serial number, manufacturer, person in charge, status, and installation date are stored in advance in the storage unit 160 as equipment ledger data, and the flow rate and head are acquired by the information acquisition unit 110 from the power facility 10 and stored in the storage unit 160 as time-series data 160A.

When the user specifies the name or identification ID of the power equipment about which he/she wishes to view information on the terminal device 50, or when a specific event (e.g., an accident) occurs for the power equipment, the concern reception unit 130 displays the user's interest in the information of the power equipment, i.e., candidate concerns, on the terminal device 50 and accepts the specification of the concern from the user. Concerns are interests that users may have in common for different types of power equipment, such as the "operational status," "work status," and "accident status" of the power equipment. On the other hand, the details of the information that a user wishes to view are generally different for the "operational status" of a pump and the "operational status" of a valve (for example, a user may wish to view the head as the "operational status" of a pump, but the head is information specific to the pump and is unrelated to the "operational status" of a valve). Therefore, in this embodiment, a UI class 160D that defines the details of the information to be provided to the user for a combination of an object class and a concern, and an object class/concern correspondence map 160C that stores the output format of the information (text, image, audio, etc.) are provided, and detailed information appropriate for the combination of an object class and a concern is provided to the user. In other words, even for the same concern, if the object classes are different, different detailed information about the power facility is provided to the user.

The information provision type determination unit 140 uses the identified combination of object class and accepted concern to search the object class/concern correspondence map 160C to determine the UI class 160D and information output format that correspond to the combination. The information provision unit 150 provides information about the power equipment to the terminal device 50 in accordance with the determined UI class 160D and information output format. The object class/concern correspondence map 160C is an example of a "database," and the UI class 160D and information output format are examples of an "information provision type."

3 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the storage unit 160. As shown in FIG. 3, the object class/concern correspondence map 160C associates information such as UI classes (or paths to UI classes) and output formats with combinations of object classes and concerns. In FIG. 3, object classes such as pump A, pump B, and valve A are shown as examples, but the object classes may also include object classes related to other power facilities such as turbines, generators, and boilers. Furthermore, in FIG. 3, concerns such as "operation status," "work status," and "accident status" are shown as examples, but the concerns may also include other concerns such as "site status," "performance status," and "alarm occurrence status." The information provision type determination unit 140 can provide the user with detailed information related to the power facilities that is suitable for each combination of object class and concern in an output form that corresponds to the situation at that time (for example, outputting audio information when an accident occurs) by referring to the object class/concern correspondence map 160C to determine the information provision type.

Figure 4 is a diagram showing an example of a definition of UI class 160D stored in storage unit 160. As an example, Figure 4 shows a definition of UI class 160D corresponding to a combination in which the object class is pump A and the concern is "operational status". The left part of Figure 4 defines that the pump identification number, model number, serial number, manufacturer, person in charge, status, and installation date are displayed as equipment information, and the right part of Figure 4 defines that a curve showing the relationship between the pump flow rate and head is displayed as a performance characteristic. In this way, by defining in advance the detailed format of information to be provided to the user according to the combination of object class and concern, it is possible to reduce the effort required for the user to check each data item one by one to obtain information of interest.

Figure 5 is a diagram showing an example of information provided according to the UI class 160D shown in Figure 4. As shown in Figure 5, the information providing unit 150 generates actual data to be provided to the terminal device 50 by inputting, into the UI class 160D, equipment ledger data and time series data 160A of the power equipment for which the user wishes to view information. At this time, the information providing unit 150 can identify the power equipment for which data is to be input based on the name or identification ID of the power equipment specified by the user on the terminal device 50, or the occurrence of a specific event (e.g., an accident) for the power equipment. The information providing unit 150 transmits the generated actual data to the terminal device 50 via the network NW.

In the object class/concern correspondence map 160C of this embodiment, as an example, a UI class is defined for each combination of object class and concern, but the present invention is not limited to such a configuration. For example, one UI class may be defined for each concern, and the detailed items of the UI class may branch depending on the object class to which it is applied. For example, if UI class 160D in FIG. 4 is generally defined as a UI class corresponding to "operational status," a branch may be set such that when the UI class is applied to pump A, "responsible" is displayed, but when the UI class is applied to pump B, "responsible" is not displayed.

[Type of concern]
Next, the types of concerns defined and displayed in this embodiment will be described with reference to Figures 6 to 10. Figure 6 is a diagram showing another example of the configuration of object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in storage unit 160. Object class/concern correspondence map 160C shown in Figure 6 further includes data items such as inclusion relationships, transition relationships, and association relationships in addition to the data items defined in object class/concern correspondence map 160C shown in Figure 4.

The inclusion relationship means a relationship established between a concern and a plurality of concerns obtained by further breaking down the contents of the concern. For example, when a user wants to know the "status" of a certain electric power facility, it is assumed that the user wants to know the "operation status", "work status", "site status", and "alarm occurrence status" of the electric power facility as further details of the "status". In other words, an interest in the "status" may potentially include an interest in the "operation status", "work status", "site status", and "alarm occurrence status". Therefore, when a concern (parent concern) has an inclusion relationship that includes other concerns (child concerns) in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C (i.e., other concerns are stored in the data item of the "inclusion relationship" in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C), the information providing unit 150 provides information on the electric power facility according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the parent concern as well as the UI class 160D corresponding to the child concern. Alternatively, if there are multiple child concerns, the UI class 160D corresponding to the parent concern is defined as a combination of the UI classes 160D corresponding to the multiple child concerns.

7 is a diagram showing an example of data provided corresponding to concerns having an inclusion relationship. The left part of FIG. 7 shows the inclusion relationship defined in the first row of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C shown in FIG. 6, and the right part of FIG. 7 shows data related to the "status" of pump A provided by the information providing unit 150 based on the inclusion relationship. As shown in the left part of FIG. 7, the concern of "status" includes concerns of "operation status", "work status", "site status", and "alarm occurrence status". Therefore, the information providing unit 150 defines a UI class 160D corresponding to the "status" of pump A by combining a UI class 160D corresponding to the "operation status" of pump A, a UI class 160D corresponding to the "work status" of pump A, a UI class 160D corresponding to the "site status" of pump A, and a UI class 160D corresponding to the "alarm occurrence status" of pump A, and provides information related to the pump according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the defined "status" of pump A.

More specifically, as shown in the right part of FIG. 7, for example, the information providing unit 150 displays information on the work status, site status, and alarm occurrence status below the equipment information and performance characteristics, which are UI class 160D corresponding to the "operational status" of pump A. A display method in which information of UI class 160D corresponding to multiple child concerns is combined and displayed as information of UI class 160D corresponding to a parent concern in this way is called a "dashboard format." For example, in response to a user clicking on information of UI class 160D corresponding to a child concern on the terminal device 50, the information providing unit 150 may display the information corresponding to the child concern in more detail (e.g., enlarged).

A transition relationship refers to a relationship that exists between a concern and another concern that is expected to become of interest to the user after the first concern is resolved. For example, if a user wants to know about the "visit inspection plan" for a certain power facility, it is expected that after checking the inspection plan, the user will want to "conduct a patrol inspection." It is further expected that after "conducting a patrol inspection," the user will want to "conduct a diagnostic analysis of deterioration." In other words, interest in "planning a patrol inspection" can potentially transition to interest in "conducting a patrol inspection," and interest in "conducting a patrol inspection" can potentially transition to interest in "diagnostic analysis of deterioration." Therefore, when a concern (pre-transition concern) has a transition relationship in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C that transitions to another concern (transition destination concern) (i.e., the other concern is stored in the "transition relationship" data item of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C), the information providing unit 150 first provides information about the power equipment according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the pre-transition concern, and then provides information about the power equipment according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the transition destination concern.

8 is a diagram showing an example of data provided corresponding to concerns having transition relationships. The left part of FIG. 8 shows the transition relationships defined in the 8th and 9th lines of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C shown in FIG. 6, and the right part of FIG. 8 shows data related to the "visit inspection plan" of pump A provided by the information providing unit 150 based on the transition relationships. As shown in the left part of FIG. 8, the concern of "visit inspection plan" transitions to the concern of "visit inspection implementation", and the concern of "visit inspection implementation" transitions to the concern of "diagnosis analysis of deterioration". Therefore, the information providing unit 150 provides information about the pump according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the "visit inspection plan" of pump A, and then provides information about the pump according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the "visit inspection implementation" of pump A, and then provides information about the pump according to the UI class 160D corresponding to the "diagnosis analysis of deterioration" of pump A.

8, to the right of the information in the UI class 160D corresponding to the "Plan of Patrol Inspection" of pump A, and further to the right of that, displays information in the UI class 160D corresponding to the "Diagnosis Analysis of Deterioration" of pump A. This display method of displaying information in the UI class 160D corresponding to the destination concern after information in the UI class 160D corresponding to the pre-transition concern is referred to as a "flowchart format." For example, the information providing unit 150 may display information corresponding to the pre-transition concern or the destination concern in more detail (e.g., enlarged) in response to the user clicking information in the UI class 160D corresponding to the pre-transition concern or the destination concern on the terminal device 50.

Note that, in this embodiment, the term "later" in relation to the transition relationship of concerns does not necessarily mean shifting the timing of displaying the information (i.e., displaying the information corresponding to the destination concern at a later time than the information corresponding to the pre-transition concern). For example, as long as the transition relationship is clearly indicated by an arrow or other notation, the information corresponding to the destination concern and the information corresponding to the pre-transition concern may be displayed simultaneously.

An associative relationship refers to a relationship that exists between a concern and another concern in which a user is expected to be interested in relation to the concern in question. In that sense, inclusion and transition relationships can also be considered a type of associative relationship, but associative relationships refer to a weaker association than inclusion and transition relationships. For example, if a user wants to know the "operational status" of a certain power facility, it is also assumed that the user, in relation to checking the operation status, will also want to check the "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plans" of the power facility. In other words, an interest in "operational status" can potentially be related to an interest in "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plans." Therefore, when a concern (association source concern) has an associative relationship with another concern (association destination concern) in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C (i.e., the other concern is stored in the "association relationship" data item of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C), the information provider 150 displays information on the UI class 160D corresponding to the associative destination concern in a manner linked to information on the UI class 160D corresponding to the associative source concern.

Figure 9 is a diagram showing an example of data provided in response to concerns having an associative relationship. The left part of Figure 9 shows the associative relationship defined in the first row of the object class/concern correspondence map 160C shown in Figure 6, and the right part of Figure 9 shows data related to the "operational status" of pump A provided by the information providing unit 150 based on the associative relationship. As shown in the left part of Figure 9, the concern of "operational status" is related to the concerns of "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan". Therefore, the information providing unit 150 displays information related to the "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan" of pump A in a manner linked to information related to the "operational status" of pump A.

More specifically, as shown in the right part of FIG. 9, the information providing unit 150, for example, displays information on "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan" selectably below information on the "operation status" of pump A. The information providing unit 150 may display information on "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan" as slides and switch the display at a predetermined time interval, or may switch the display in response to a user clicking an arrow displayed on the slide. A display method in which information on multiple associated concerns is displayed in a slide format selectably in this manner is referred to as a "slideshow format." For example, the information providing unit 150 may display information corresponding to the associated concern in more detail (e.g., enlarged) in response to a user clicking on information on the associated concern displayed in a slideshow format on the terminal device 50.

Figure 10 is a diagram showing another example of data provided in response to concerns having an associative relationship. For example, as shown in the right part of Figure 10, the information providing unit 150 displays information regarding "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan" selectably below information regarding the "operational status" of pump A. The information providing unit 150 displays information regarding "inventory status" and "patrol inspection plan" as a list of selectable items, and displays information regarding "inventory status" or "patrol inspection plan" in response to the user clicking on a selection item displayed in the list. This display method in which information regarding multiple associated concerns is displayed in a selectable list format is referred to as a "navigation format."

In the above description of Figs. 7 to 10, for convenience, the information providing unit 150 displays information on only one of the inclusion relationship, transition relationship, and association relationship on the screen. However, the present invention is not limited to such a configuration, and when a concern has multiple relationships with multiple other concerns, the information providing unit 150 may display information on all of those relationships on the same screen. For example, when a concern (first concern) has an inclusion relationship that includes another concern (second concern) and at the same time has an association relationship with yet another concern (third concern), the information providing unit 150 may display information on the first concern at the top of the same screen, information on the second concern below that, and information on the third concern below that.

7 to 10, the information providing unit 150 determines whether a concern has an inclusion relationship, a transition relationship, or an association relationship with another concern by referring to the predefined object class/concern correspondence map 160C. However, the present invention is not limited to such a configuration, and the information providing unit 150 may determine whether a concern has an inclusion relationship, a transition relationship, or an association relationship with another concern based on the user's concern designation history. For example, if the user frequently checks information on the "work status" after checking information on the "site status", the information providing unit 150 may determine that the "site status" concern has an associative relationship with the "work status" concern. In this case, when the information providing unit 150 determines that a concern has an associative relationship with another concern in the same object class, it determines that these concerns have an "associative relationship with something" in the object class. Also, for example, if a user checks information about multiple other concerns after checking information about the "site situation", it may be determined that the "site situation" concern has an associative relationship with these multiple concerns. In this case, the information providing unit 150 may accept the user's designation by displaying a list of options for selecting one of the multiple concerns in order of frequency of past confirmation.

In another embodiment, the information providing unit 150 may determine the inclusion, transition, or association relationship of concerns based on the designation history of a user with high engineering skills (the level of skill can be determined, for example, based on the registration period or job title of the user registered in the information providing device 100), and display multiple concerns to a user with low engineering skills according to the inclusion, transition, or association relationship. For example, if a user with high skills frequently checks information on "work status" after checking information on "site status", the information providing unit 150 may determine that the "site status" concern has an associative relationship with the "work status" concern, and when a user with low skills checks information on "site status", the information on "work status" may be selectably displayed in a slideshow or list format.

[Operation flow]
Next, a flow of processing executed by the information providing device 100 will be described with reference to Fig. 11. Fig. 11 is a flowchart showing an example of a flow of processing executed by the information providing device 100.

First, the information acquisition unit 110 acquires time series data related to the power equipment installed in the power facility 10 from the power facility 10 (step S101). Next, the object class identification unit 120 determines whether the user specifies, on the terminal device 50, the name or identification ID of the power equipment about which the user wishes to view information, or whether a specific event has occurred for the power equipment (step S102).

When the user specifies, on the terminal device 50, the name or identification ID of the power equipment about which information is to be viewed, or when it is determined that a specific event has not occurred for the power equipment, the object class identification unit 120 executes the process of step S102 again. On the other hand, when the user specifies, on the terminal device 50, the name or identification ID of the power equipment about which information is to be viewed, or when it is determined that a specific event has occurred for the power equipment, the object class identification unit 120 identifies the object class corresponding to the power equipment (step S103).

Next, the concern receiving unit 130 displays candidates for concerns of the power facility specified by the user on the terminal device 50 and determines whether or not a concern specification has been received from the user (step S104). If it is determined that a concern specification has not been received from the user, the concern receiving unit 130 waits until a concern specification is received from the user. On the other hand, if it is determined that a concern specification has been received from the user, the information provision type determining unit 140 uses the identified combination of object class and received concern to search the object class/concern correspondence map 160C to determine the UI class 160D and information output format corresponding to the combination of the object class and concern (step S105). The information providing unit 150 provides information about the power facility according to the determined UI class 160D and information output format (step S106). This ends the processing of this flowchart.

According to at least one of the embodiments described above, the information provision type of information to be provided to the user is determined based on the object class corresponding to the power facility specified by the user or where a specified event has occurred, and the concern that the user has regarding the power facility, and information regarding the power facility is provided according to the determined information provision type. This reduces the effort required for plant monitors to perform operations to obtain information of interest.

[Configuration of information design support device]
As described above, the storage unit 160 stores in advance UI classes 160D corresponding to combinations of object classes and concerns, and the information providing device 100 determines the UI classes 160D to be displayed by referring to the object class/concern correspondence map 160C. That is, the UI classes 160D are created in advance, for example, by an engineer who is familiar with the management of the power facilities 10, taking into consideration the combinations of object classes and concerns, and are stored in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C. The following describes the information design support device 200 that supports the creation of the UI classes 160D.

FIG. 12 is a diagram showing an example of the configuration of a system 1 including an information providing device 100 and an information design support device 200 according to an embodiment. As shown in FIG. 12, the system 1 includes an electric power facility 10, a terminal device 50, an information providing device 100, and an information design support device 200.

The information design support device 200 is a server device that provides the terminal device 50 with a function as a development environment for supporting the creation of the UI class 160D, and includes, for example, a UI editing unit 210, a UI presentation unit 220, and a storage unit 230. The UI editing unit 210 and the UI presentation unit 220 are realized by, for example, a hardware processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) executing a program (software). Some or all of these components may be realized by hardware (including circuitry) such as an LSI (Large Scale Integration), an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit), an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), or a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), or may be realized by collaboration between software and hardware. The program may be stored in advance in a storage device (a storage device with a non-transient storage medium) such as a hard disk drive (HDD) or flash memory, or may be stored in a removable storage medium (non-transient storage medium) such as a DVD or CD-ROM, and installed by inserting the storage medium into a drive device. The storage unit 160 is, for example, a HDD, flash memory, or RAM (Random Access Memory). The storage unit 230 stores, for example, an object class 230A, a UI component 230B, and a UI class 230C.

In the following description, the information design support device 200 and the terminal device 50 are separate entities, and the user uses, for example, a web browser (an example of a "display unit") on the terminal device 50 to utilize the functions of the development environment provided by the information design support device 200, but the present invention is not limited to such a configuration. For example, the functions of the development environment provided by the information design support device 200 described below may be installed as an application on the terminal device 50, or the information providing device 100 described above may also have the functions of the information design support device 200.

The UI editing unit 210 provides an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B, such as text boxes, shapes, property values of object classes, graphs, images or videos, for a combination of an object class and a concern.

FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. As shown in the right part of FIG. 13, for example, a user selects "Pump A" as an object class and "operational status" as a concern on the terminal device 50, and the UI editing unit 210 provides the terminal device 50 with an interface for creating a UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "operational status". Note that the UI editing unit 210 may provide a function for the user to not only select an existing object class and concern, but also to define a new object class or concern and edit the UI class 230C.

When the name of an object class is selected on the screen of the terminal device 50, the UI editing unit 210 refers to the object class 230A stored in the memory unit 230, acquires the properties of the object class, and makes them available for editing the UI class 230C. For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the object class of "Pump A" includes items such as identification number, model number, serial number, manufacturer, person in charge, status, installation date, flow rate, and head as properties. Therefore, the UI editing unit 210 makes these properties linked to the object class of "Pump A" selectable and can embed them in the UI class 230C to be created, as shown in the lower right of FIG. 13.

As shown in the left part of FIG. 13, the user, for example, inputs characters into a text box TXTBX, which is a type of UI component 230B, on the terminal device 50. In the example of FIG. 13, the user inputs "pump operation status" into text box TXTBX1 and "equipment information" into text box TXTBX2 on the terminal device 50. The user further draws a shape such as a rectangle SQ1 on the terminal device 50. The user further drags and drops, for example, the identification number PR1, model number PR2, and serial number PR3 as properties from the property list on the terminal device 50, thereby making it possible to display the values of these properties.

Figure 14 is a diagram showing another example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. Figure 14 shows a situation in which the user has completed defining the facility information for UI class 230C in the scene of Figure 13.

As shown in the left part of FIG. 14, the user inputs "Performance characteristics" into text box TXTBX3 on the terminal device 50, for example. Next, the user embeds a graph in the UI class 230C by, for example, invoking a graph function, which is a type of UI component 230B, on the terminal device 50 (for example, by right-clicking the mouse). At this time, for example, the UI editing unit 210 presents a dialog box that asks the user to specify explanatory variables and target variables for the graph, as shown in the left part of FIG. 14, and the user can define the graph by, for example, selecting explanatory variables and target variables from a list of properties.

In the example of Figure 14, the user selects flow rate as the explanatory variable and head as the objective variable. This defines a performance curve showing the relationship between flow rate and head in UI class 230C. Through the above process, UI class 230C is created that is the same as UI class 160D shown in Figure 4 for the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "Operational Status."

In this embodiment, a simple example of specifying explanatory variables and target variables is shown as a graph function, which is a type of UI component 230B. However, for example, a user may create a more complex mathematical model in advance as a plugin and store it in the storage unit 230, and the UI editing unit 210 may call the plugin stored in the storage unit 230 and embed it in the UI class 230C.

The UI presentation unit 220 transmits the UI class 230C created for the combination of object class and concern to the terminal device 50 for display. At this time, the UI presentation unit 220 may display the created UI class 230C as a template as shown in FIG. 4, or may display it as actual data as shown in FIG. 5 by inputting production data stored in the information providing device 100 or sample data stored in the information design support device 200 into the UI class 230C. After that, the UI class 230C that has been created is deployed as UI class 160D in the storage unit 160 of the information providing device 100.

Note that Figures 13 and 14 show interface screens when a user creates a UI class 230C for each combination of object class and concern. On the other hand, for the same concern, even if the object classes are different, it may be possible to define common (or partially common) UI items. In such cases, it is not efficient to manually create a UI class 230C for each combination of object class and concern.

15 is a diagram showing another example of an interface for creating a UI class 230C by combining multiple UI components 230B. As shown in the right part of FIG. 15, for example, on the terminal device 50, the user selects "operational status" as a concern and selects "pump A", "pump B", and "valve A" as object classes. At this time, the UI editing unit 210 provides the terminal device 50 with an interface for creating a UI class 230C corresponding to the concern of "operational status", and the created UI class 230C is commonly applied to the object classes of "pump A", "pump B", and "valve A". For example, after editing UI items common to the object classes of "pump A", "pump B", and "valve A", the user may switch to the interface shown in FIG. 13 and FIG. 14 and edit UI items specific to each object class. This allows the UI class 230C to be efficiently created for multiple object classes having common UI items for a certain concern.

Next, referring to Figures 16 to 19, an interface for defining the inclusion relationship, transition relationship, and association relationship of concerns in UI class 230C will be described. Figure 16 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining the inclusion relationship of concerns in UI class 230C. As in Figure 13, a user selects, for example, "Pump A" as an object class and "Status" as a concern on terminal device 50, and the UI editing unit 210 provides terminal device 50 with an interface for creating UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "Status".

16, the UI editing unit 210 displays a list of multiple concerns as candidates for concerns to be included in "status", i.e., as included concerns. For example, the user can drag and drop "operation status", "work status", "site status", and "alarm occurrence status" from the list of included concerns on the terminal device 50 to embed a UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the "operation status" concern, a UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the "work status" concern, a UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the "site status" concern, and a UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the "alarm occurrence status" concern into the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the "status" concern. When an inclusion relationship is defined for a certain UI class 230C, the inclusion relationship is reflected in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the information providing device 100.

Figure 17 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining a transition relationship of concerns in UI class 230C. In the case of Figure 17, for example, a user selects "Pump A" as an object class and "Patient inspection plan" as a concern on terminal device 50, and the UI editing unit 210 provides terminal device 50 with an interface for creating UI class 230C that corresponds to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "Patient inspection plan".

17, the UI editing unit 210 displays a list of multiple concerns as candidates for the next transition of a concern, i.e., as destination concerns. For example, the user can drag and drop "diagnostic analysis of deterioration" from the list of destination concerns on the terminal device 50 for the concern "perform inspection on site" to display the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern "diagnostic analysis of deterioration" after the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern "perform inspection on site". The user can further drag and drop "alarm notification" from the list of destination concerns for the concern "diagnostic analysis of deterioration" to display the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern "diagnostic analysis of deterioration" after the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern "perform inspection on site". As a result, for the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "Planning inspection", a UI class 230C is defined that transitions in the order of "Perform inspection", "Diagnosis and analysis of deterioration", and "Notify alarm". When a transition relationship is defined for a certain UI class 230C, the transition relationship is reflected in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the information providing device 100. Note that even in this case, the description "later" does not necessarily mean that the timing of displaying the information will be shifted. For example, as long as the transition relationship is clearly indicated by a notation such as an arrow, information corresponding to the destination concern and information corresponding to the pre-transition concern may be displayed simultaneously.

Figure 18 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining an associative relationship of concerns to UI class 230C. In the case of Figure 18, for example, a user selects "Pump A" as an object class and "operational status" as a concern on terminal device 50, and the UI editing unit 210 provides terminal device 50 with an interface for creating UI class 230C that corresponds to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "operational status".

18, the UI editing unit 210 displays a list of multiple concerns as candidates related to the "operation status", i.e., as related concerns. For example, the user drags and drops "stock status" from the list of associated concerns on the terminal device 50 to display the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "stock status" as a selectable slide on the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "operation status". The UI presentation unit 220 slides information about the "stock status" as a selection item, and displays the information about the "stock status" in more detail (for example, enlarged) in response to the user clicking on a selection item displayed on the slide. When an association relationship is defined for a certain UI class 230C, the association relationship is reflected in the object class/concern correspondence map 160C stored in the information providing device 100.

Figure 19 is a diagram showing an example of an interface for defining an associative relationship of concerns to UI class 230C. In the case of Figure 19, for example, a user selects "Pump A" as an object class and "operational status" as a concern on terminal device 50, and the UI editing unit 210 provides terminal device 50 with an interface for creating UI class 230C that corresponds to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "operational status".

As shown in the lower right of FIG. 19, the UI editing unit 210 displays a plurality of concerns in a list format as candidates for concerns related to "operation status", i.e., as related concerns. For example, the user drags and drops "stock status" from the list of associated concerns on the terminal device 50 to selectably display the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "stock status" on the UI class 230C corresponding to the combination of the object class of "Pump A" and the concern of "operation status". The UI presentation unit 220 displays information about "stock status" as a list of selection items, and displays information about "stock status" in response to the user clicking on a selection item displayed in the list. Through the above processing, the inclusion relationship, transition relationship, and association relationship of concerns are defined in the UI class 230C.

18 and 19 have described a case where the user manually sets the associative relationships of concerns. However, as described above, the associative relationships of concerns can also be obtained, for example, by learning the associative tendencies of each user based on the user's concern designation history. Therefore, the information providing unit 150 may display, for example, only one of the associative concerns obtained by learning and the manually set associative concerns, or may display them simultaneously so that they can be distinguished. Also, for example, the information providing unit 150 may display the manually set associative concerns by default, and as the learning of the associative tendencies of each user progresses, the concerns that are frequently specified by users may replace the concerns displayed by default.

According to at least one of the embodiments described above, an interface is provided for creating a UI to be provided to a user in accordance with a combination of an object class, which is information that categorizes the type of power equipment, and a concern, which is an interest the user has in the power equipment, and information about the power equipment is provided based on the created UI. This reduces the effort required for plant supervisors to perform operations to obtain information of interest.

In this embodiment, the present invention is described as being applied to a plant installed in an electric power facility, for example. However, the present invention is not limited to such a configuration, and can be applied to monitoring various social infrastructure facilities, such as water, gas, medical, roads, railways, and airports. For example, when the present invention is applied to water facilities, a water tank, a water distribution pipe, etc. can be set as an object class, and an operation status and an inspection status can be set as a concern. Also, when the present invention is applied to gas supply facilities, a bulk storage tank, an overfill prevention device, etc. can be set as an object class, and an operation status and an inspection status can be set as a concern.

Although several embodiments of the present invention have been described, these embodiments are presented as examples and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. These embodiments can be implemented in various other forms, and various omissions, substitutions, and modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the invention. These embodiments and their modifications are within the scope of the invention and its equivalents as set forth in the claims, as well as the scope and gist of the invention.

10...power facility, 50...terminal device, 100...information providing device, 110...information acquisition unit, 120...object class identification unit, 130...concern reception unit, 140...information provision type determination unit, 150...information providing unit, 160...storage unit, 160A...time series data, 160B...object class, 160C...object class/concern correspondence map, 160D...UI class, 200...information design support device, 210...UI editing unit, 220...UI presentation unit, 230...storage unit, 230A...object class, 230B...UI component, 230C...UI class

Claims (9)

1. An information providing device that provides information about electric power facilities based on a combination of an object class, which is information that categorizes the type of the electric power facilities by defining a plurality of data items, and one or more concerns, which are information that indicates a user's interest in the electric power facilities,
an object class identification unit that identifies the object class corresponding to the electric power facility in response to the user's designation of the electric power facility or the occurrence of a predetermined event for the electric power facility;
a concern receiving unit that receives a concern designated by the user;
an information provision type determination unit that uses the specified combination of the object class and the received concern to search a database in which combinations of object classes and concerns are associated with information provision types of information on the power facility, thereby determining the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the concern;
and an information providing unit that provides information about the power facility according to the determined information provision type.
Information provision device. The database includes:
storing a first information provision type in association with the first object class and the predetermined concern;
storing a second information provision type in association with a second object class and the predetermined concern;
The first information provision type and the second information provision type are different.
2. The information providing device according to claim 1. the one or more concerns may include a plurality of concerns;
a first concern of the plurality of concerns has a relationship that includes a second concern of the plurality of concerns;
the information providing unit provides information about the electric power facility according to the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the first concern, together with information about the electric power facility according to another information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the second concern.
3. The information providing device according to claim 1 or 2. the one or more concerns may include a plurality of concerns;
a first concern of the plurality of concerns has a transition relationship with a second concern of the plurality of concerns;
the information providing unit provides information about the electric power facility according to the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the first concern, and then provides information about the electric power facility according to another information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the second concern.
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 3. the one or more concerns may include a plurality of concerns;
the information providing unit displays the plurality of concerns in a manner linking a second concern related to a first concern among the plurality of concerns ;
the concern receiving unit receives designation of at least one of the plurality of concerns by the user;
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 4. the one or more concerns may include a plurality of concerns;
The information providing unit displays the plurality of concerns associated with the identified object class.
the concern receiving unit receives designation of at least one of the plurality of concerns by the user;
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 5. the one or more concerns may include a plurality of concerns;
the information providing unit displays the plurality of concerns based on a concern designation history by the user ;
the concern receiving unit receives designation of at least one of the plurality of concerns by the user;
The information providing device according to any one of claims 1 to 6. 1. An information providing method in which a computer provides information on electric power equipment based on a combination of an object class, which is information that categorizes a type of the electric power equipment by defining a plurality of data items, and one or more concerns, which are information that indicates a user's interest in the electric power equipment,
Identifying the object class corresponding to the electric power facility in response to the user's designation of the electric power facility or the occurrence of a predetermined event for the electric power facility;
accepting a concern designated by the user;
using the identified combination of the object class and the received concern, searching a database in which combinations of object classes and concerns are associated with information provision types of information on the electric power facility, thereby determining the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the concern;
providing information about the power facility according to the determined information provision type;
Information provision method. A program for causing a computer to provide information on electric power equipment based on a combination of an object class, which is information categorizing the type of the electric power equipment by defining a plurality of data items, and one or more concerns, which are information expressing a user's interest in the electric power equipment,
Identifying the object class corresponding to the electric power facility in response to the user's designation of the electric power facility or the occurrence of a predetermined event with respect to the electric power facility;
accepting a concern designated by the user;
using the identified combination of the object class and the received concern, searching a database in which combinations of object classes and concerns are associated with information provision types of information on the electric power facility, thereby determining the information provision type corresponding to the combination of the object class and the concern;
causing information about the electric power facility to be provided in accordance with the determined information provision type;
program.

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