What is AVEVA PI System?

AVEVA PI System, previously developed as OSIsoft PI System, is an operational data platform designed for industry and energy. Its central component is PI Server, which stores time-series data and links it to equipment and process context.

PI System is often described as an industrial historian, but data archiving is only one of its functions. The system can model plant structures, perform calculations, identify events, display data to users, and share it with other applications, BI systems, and analytics solutions.

How does AVEVA PI System work?

The first step is data acquisition. PI Interfaces, PI Connectors, and AVEVA Adapters communicate with OT sources and send measurements to PI System. Historical data is stored in PI Data Archive, where values are retained along with timestamps and quality information.

Measurement history alone is not enough for efficient analysis. That is why Asset Framework (AF) associates data with specific plants, lines, facilities, and equipment. This allows users to work with assets such as pumps, turbines, or production lines rather than analyzing individual tags with technical names.

The next layer handles data interpretation. Asset Analytics calculates KPIs, efficiency, specific consumption, and other metrics. Event Frames record events such as startups, shutdowns, production batches, and parameter limit violations. Users can then compare entire events and investigate the reasons for differences in process behavior.

Data is made available to users through tools such as AVEVA PI Vision, which lets them create dashboards, trends, and process displays. PI System can also pass information through APIs and integration tools to business systems, data platforms, BI tools, and AI environments.

What is AVEVA PI System used for?

PI System is primarily used where process data comes from multiple sources and requires a shared history and context. Typical applications include production monitoring, energy efficiency analysis, KPI reporting, startup and shutdown analysis, equipment comparisons, and infrastructure condition monitoring.

Data collected and organized in PI System can also support predictive maintenance, data science, and AI models. This is especially important because the effectiveness of these analyses depends not only on the amount of data but also on its quality and context. Temperature or vibration data becomes much more useful when users know which asset it relates to, its operating condition at the time, and what happened to it previously.

The current AVEVA ecosystem also extends this model to the cloud through AVEVA CONNECT, allowing data from on-premises installations to be used in architectures that span multiple plants, centralized analytics, and advanced computing solutions powered by cloud resources (advanced analytics / machine learning).

In practice, AVEVA PI System serves as a layer that connects OT data with the people and systems that need to use it. Its value increases when data is properly integrated, described in Asset Framework, and linked to specific operational questions.

ConnectPoint, an official AVEVA partner, helps companies implement, integrate, and expand the use of this technology. Learn more about AVEVA solutions and ConnectPoint integration services.