Maintenance is an important consideration in the development of any Mimic simulation regardless of whether it is being used for operator training, control system development, or decision making. Unfortunately, this is often-forgotten in the early design and development stages and can greatly impact simulator maintenance cost.
One of the most common mistakes made is in the database structure and model implementation. This is especially true for inexperienced users and is in part a result of Mimic’s powerful FHX Utility, which automatically generates tiebacks, I/O models, and SIOtags corresponding to an existing DeltaV configuration. This is the starting point for most simulators.
The immediate inclination for users is to modify these tieback models by either deleting wires, adding modelling, and/or adding references to process models. Unfortunately, any modification made to these models would be lost, if the FHX Utility needed to be rerun. As a result, the simulator tiebacks and I/O models must be maintained manually from that point forward rather than utilizing the FHX Utility for updates to the DeltaV configuration. The same is also true when using the Bulk Generation Utility to generate I/O models.
For this reason, my recommendation is to avoid modifying the models generated by these utilities unless necessary. Instead, an Output Parameter can write to the I/O block's ENABLE and TRACK parameters from another model developed either manually or using the Bulk Generation Utility. This means that the FHX Utility can be rerun at any point in the simulator lifecycle without losing work, and these additional models can be used to help identify modelling changes, as any I/O changes will create bad references.
Interested in learning more about how to get started with using Mimic’s DeltaV FHX Utility? Visit emerson.com/mimic or open Mimic Explorer within DeltaV and search for DeltaV FHX Utility in the help files. You can also post questions and inquiries on this topic by replying to this post below.