Patent ID: 7200774

Claim:
A system for supporting a fault cause analysis of a fault event in an industrial plant having plant components and plant systems, comprising: an operating and display device for receiving input data and displaying output data; a fault cause navigator; a data processing device having a fault model memory storing at least one hierarchically structured cause/effect model in XML files, said at least one cause/effect model having: an industry specific process model divided into process steps, respective ones of said process steps and defined fault events for said process steps being associated with one of the plant components and the plant systems; fault trees associated with said fault events having fault hypotheses; and a checklist with symptoms for verification of each of said fault hypotheses associated with a respective one of said fault hypotheses; said operating and display device and said fault cause navigator connected to said fault model memory and accessing said at least one cause/effect model; and said operating and display device, said fault cause navigator, and said data processing device programmed: a) to enable user navigation to a relevant one of said process steps in said at least one cause/effect model through said operating and display device and said fault cause navigator, and to present to a user a fault event list; b) after selection of a fault event in said fault event list by the user, to find and display critical ones of said plant components and said plant systems corresponding to said selected fault event; c) after selection of at least one of said critical plant components and said critical plant systems, to generate possible symptoms and display said symptoms in a checklist; and d) after selection of at least one of said symptoms as a probable symptom, to find and display hypotheses of possible fault causes contained in said fault trees.