System and method for plant efficiency evaluation

A method for evaluating plant efficiency, the method comprising:

• providing a user interface with a first graphical zone, a second graphical zone, and a third graphical zone;
• displaying a set of operators in the first graphical zone of the user interface and a set of operands in the second graphical zone of the user interface;
• providing a formula editor user interface in the third graphical zone;
• creating a formula for a plant performance indicator (PPI) by performing, with the formula editor user interface, a drag-and-drop of an operator from the first graphical zone, or respectively of an operand from the second graphical zone, the PPI being a measure of plant efficiency;
• detecting user input for dragging and dropping respective operands and operators into the third graphical zone and, at each dropping of a given operand into the third graphical zone, automatically displaying for the given operand a predefined list of entities involved in a production process of the plant, the entities being pieces of equipment in the plant, the predefined list enabling an entity to be selected for the given operand, and detecting user input for selection of a given entity from the predefined list;
• automatically collecting, in real time from the given entity, data corresponding to the given entity for each respective operand that has been dragged and dropped in the third graphical zone and automatically calculating the PPI from the formula and the collected data;
• and
• performing an interaction with the third graphical zone to thereby perform a withdrawal of an operand from the third graphical zone, and in response to the withdrawal of the operand, automatically stopping the collection of data from the entity that was selected for the operand that was withdrawn from the third graphical zone, wherein the entity that was selected is one of the pieces of equipment in the plant.