Need for speed: Run multiple instances of equipment generator (EquipGen.exe) in parallel.

Is it possible to run multiple instances of the equipment generator (EquipGen.exe) on one Computer on different core’s?
This to speed up the generation for example if an Equipment type is changed.

At a Customer we have a project where the equipment editor and generation is used (not my choice). This to create the Variable.dbf, trend.dbf and digalm.dbf. At this moment an “Update equipment” will cost hours, it does not matter if incremental update equipment is on or off, it is too long!

In the equipment there is some sort of logic, it is possible to split them over several projects.

I’m able to start by batch scrips a instance of the equipment editor to generate the DBF files on a specific project. See command below, REV_VBL is one of the project names. Running multiple instance at the same time by manually starting different batch file with different project name, fails.

Command:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\AVEVA Plant SCADA\Bin\EquipGen.exe" /I"C:\ProgramData\AVEVA Plant SCADA 2023\Config\citect.ini" "REV_VBL" "C:\ProgramData\AVEVA Plant SCADA 2023\User\REV_VBL"

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  • Hi Thijs-Jan,

    If you have the time (budget) and skills you could consider building your own equipment generator. This generator can and will be much faster, because it will be tailored to your project. In your case the generator does not need to check for manual changes made in the dbf as no manual changes are allowed anyway.

    This makes it possible for the tool to just delete the current dbf and build a new one from scratch (byte by byte), eliminating the ODBC interface that EquipGen.exe uses to query the dbf.

    We use a custom generator that does exactly that, and in our case it reduces the generation time from over 1 hour to just 5 seconds. And in addition to the standard tooling, it also is capable of generating Local Variables and performs a re-index on the project afterwards.

  • Hi Patrick,

    I know the trick and used it a lot on former projects.Blush,

    Customers most of the time don’t want to spent that budget. They want a commercial off the shelf product that performs!. The current customer is one that. So I’m looking for a work around/tweak within the boundary’s

    Best regards,

    Thijs-Jan

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  • Hi Patrick,

    I know the trick and used it a lot on former projects.Blush,

    Customers most of the time don’t want to spent that budget. They want a commercial off the shelf product that performs!. The current customer is one that. So I’m looking for a work around/tweak within the boundary’s

    Best regards,

    Thijs-Jan

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