Abstract: Methods and accompanying systems are provided for predicting outcomes, such as industrial asset failures, in heavy industries. The predicted outcomes can be used by owners and operators of oil rigs, mines, factories, and other operational sites to identify potential failures and take preventive and/or remedial action with respect to industrial assets. In one implementation, historical data associated with a plurality of outcomes is received at one or more central site servers from one or more data sources, and datasets are generated from the historical data. Using the datasets, a set of models is trained to predict an outcome. A particular model includes sub-models corresponding to a hierarchy of components of an industrial asset. The set of models is combined into an ensemble model, which is transmitted to remote sites.

Abstract: An interface component, which is operable to allow one or more application programs to interact with device functions and corresponding method, that is stored in computer readable medium includes three distinct layers. The component includes a device (telephony) client operable to provide a plurality of interfaces to an application program, a device (phone) abstraction layer operable to interact with the device client and to provide access to device functions, the device functions being device independent and a device (phone) driver module operable to interact with the device abstraction layer and with hardware that is device dependent. One or more of the device client, the device abstraction layer, and the device driver module further comprises a plurality of components with each such component operable to support a corresponding grouping of the device functions.