Pattern Matching
You can set up Pattern Matching to detect combinations of events that indicate an expected, known larger event that is part of your process.
For example, let's say that at 9:40AM, the following events occurred.
- A rise in motor speed on Motor A
- A rise in motor current on Motor A
- An instability in motor voltage on Motor A
- A drop in tank level on the Clean Water Tank
- A loss of motor speed control on Motor A
We know that movement in speed, current and voltage is normal for when our motor starts up. So we can define a pattern for Timeline to look for.
The pattern “Motor A Startup” can be defined as a rise in each of the speed, voltage and current on Motor A (when pattern matching, Timeline will treat 'instability' as both a 'Rise' and a 'Drop', as it means that it's been spiking up and down).
The pattern matcher 'eats' each of the events that triggered it. So when we run Timeline again, we see only the following…
- Motor A Startup on Motor A
- A drop in tank level on the Clean Water Tank
- A loss of motor speed control on Motor A
What about that loss of control? We've got two choices.
Firstly - if we think it's not normal - we can simply leave it as-is.
Otherwise, if we think that the brief loss of control is perfectly acceptable when the machine is starting, we can include it as an optional part of the pattern.
If it's optional, the pattern will be matched regardless of if the loss of control happens. But if the loss of control does pop up in and around the motor startup, it will be removed from the system as an expected event that is part of starting up.
This leaves us with the following two events…
- Motor A Startup on Motor A
- A drop in tank level on the Clean Water Tank
Which are exactly what we want to see, as the drop in tank level is not an expected part of the motor starting up.