Methods and apparatus to configure process control systems based on generic process system libraries

A tangible computer readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed cause a machine to at least:

• instantiate an instance of a generic process system library, the generic process system library being a fillable template including representations of interconnected equipment items included in a process control system, the equipment items generating corresponding process signals, the generic process system library including generic process graphic data and generic control strategy data, the generic process graphic data including graphical representations of the equipment items and graphical representations of the corresponding process signals arranged in a hierarchy, the generic control strategy data including generic placeholders arranged in the hierarchy;
• request process specific data associated with the operation of the process control system to modify the generic placeholders;
• determine whether the process specific data received are sufficient to modify the generic placeholders;
• and
• configure the instance to operate the equipment items of the process control system by incorporating the process specific data with the generic placeholders to generate a process specific control strategy from the generic control strategy data and to generate a process specific graphic from the generic process graphic data, the process specific data including specific tag name data used to modify generic tag names for the equipment items to specific tag names and specific process variables of the equipment items used to modify generic process signal fields to specific process signals, the specific tag names being assigned to the graphical representations of the equipment items and the specific process signals being assigned to the graphical representations of the corresponding process signals.

An apparatus comprising:

• a generic library database to store a generic process system library, the generic process system library being a fillable template including representations of interconnected equipment items included in a process control system, the equipment items generating corresponding process signals, the generic process system library comprising generic graphic data and generic control strategy data, the generic graphic data including graphical representations of the equipment items and graphical representations of the corresponding process signals arranged in a hierarchy, the generic control strategy data including generic placeholders arranged in the hierarchy;
• and
• an instance generator to:
• request process specific data associated with the operation of the process control system to modify the generic placeholders,
• determine whether the process specific data received are sufficient to modify the generic placeholders, and
• generate an instance of the generic process system library by incorporating the process specific data with the generic placeholders to generate a process specific control strategy from the generic control strategy data and to generate a process specific graphic from the generic graphic data, the process specific data including specific tag name data used to modify generic tag names for the equipment items to specific tag names and specific process variables of the equipment items used to modify generic process signal fields to specific process signals, the specific tag names being assigned to the graphical representations of the equipment items and the specific process signals being assigned to the graphical representations of the corresponding process signals.