Dynamic search engine for an industrial environment

A method for indexing and searching multi-platform industrial data, comprising:

• identifying, by a system comprising a processor, available data items located on multiple data sources of an industrial environment, wherein the available data items comprise at least first data tags referenced by one or more control programs stored on one or more industrial controllers and visualization references of second data tags displayed on one or more human-machine interface devices;
• generating, by the system, a federated data model that indexes respective locations of the data items;
• receiving, by the system, query information specifying a data item;
• in response to the receiving, identifying, by the system, locations of the data item based on a search of the federated data model;
• generating, by the system, a set of search results identifying the locations of the data item, wherein the set of search results are segregated into at least a first subset of results representing a subset of the first data tags matching the data item stored on at least one of the one or more industrial controllers and a second subset of results representing one or more of the visualization references of the second data tags matching the data item;
• and
• sending, by the system, the set of search results to a client device.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, in response to execution, cause a system comprising a processor to perform operations, the operations comprising:

• discovering available data items located on multiple data sources of an industrial environment, wherein the available data items comprise at least first data tags of one or more control programs stored on one or more industrial controllers and visualization references of second data tags displayed on one or more human-machine interface devices;
• creating a federated data model that records respective locations of the data items;
• in response to receiving query information specifying a data item, identifying locations of the data item based on a search of the federated data model;
• generating a set of search results corresponding to the locations of the data item, wherein the set of search results are categorized according to at least a first subset of results representing a subset of the first data tags corresponding to the data item and stored on at least one of the one or more industrial controllers and a second subset of results representing one or more of the visualization references corresponding to a subset of the second data tags corresponding to the data item;
• and
• sending the set of search results to a client device.