Alarm Management using EcoStruxure System Advisor

[Muthu]

What is an Alarm?

 ISA-18.2 defines an alarm as “an audible and/or visible means of indicating to the operator an equipment malfunction, process deviation, or abnormal condition requiring a response.”.

Alarm Evolution

When we entered the digital revolution Distributed Control Systems were a benefit to the industry. The Console operator could now control the process without having to understand the equipment necessary to perform the control functions. Pre DCS era creating an alarm in an operational alarm panel was expensive, but now alarms can be configured on DCS at nearly zero incremental cost.

Through the efforts of ISA-18.2, IEC 62682 and EEMUA and other such professional groups, a large amount of best practice information exists to aid the control system engineer in designing effective alarm systems.

Challenges Today

 

An inefficient / poorly performing alarm system manifests itself in alarm frequency and it may lead to reduced production, leading to indecision, confusion and console operator overload. What happens if they miss a critical alarm? may lead to reduce production or it can end up with unplanned shutdown, also it can trigger environmental damage or safety incidents.

Schneider Electric’s Workflow to resolve Alarm Problem in a plant

                                                        Figure 1: Schneider Electric Alarm Management Work flow

How Schneider Electric’s System Advisor Resolve the Alarm Problem

Schneider Electric’s Alarm Management tools are designed to comply standards. EcoStruxure System Advisor for Process Control is a knowledge management application to centralize the various functions related to Electronic documentation, Alarm management and other day to day management of EcoStruxure Foxboro Distributed Control Systems. System Advisor improves Engineering productivity, Efficiency, and Effectiveness.

                                                                     Figure 2: EcoStruxure System Advisor

System Advisor Alarm Management module help to

Analysis of both Alarm Dynamics and Alarm Configuration

• Analyze alarms such as Most Frequent Alarms, Chattering Alarms, Standing Alarms, etc.
• Help to prioritize alarms management
• Help to eliminate redundant alarms, not required alarms etc.

Documentation and Rationalization Features

• Rationalization process based on the finding and make a documentation of the alarms to be used for the daily operation, next cycle of rationalization process
• Master Alarm Database (MADB) can be called from DCS HMI to provide the Operator with alarm information

Provides Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Change Tracking

• Any changes as the result of the rationalization process will be capture and easily can be filter to see what changes has been done.

Alarm Shelving (Foxboro DCS Only)

• Dynamic Shelving and Auto Un-Shelving base on logic or time.
• To help operation to temporary Shelve alarm as the alarm is not required to some reason, such as under maintenance, testing etc.
• Complete Audit trail of Shelved alarms

Alarm Rationalization

Schneider Electric Alarm Management Consulting Services are grounded in the findings and recommendations of the Abnormal Situation Management consortium (ASM) and follow the Engineering Equipment and Material User Association (EEMUA) Publication No. 191 Guidelines and the ISA SP-18.2.2009 standards.

                                                                  Figure 3: Alarm Lifecycle Management

                                                   Figure 4: Schneider Electric Alarm Management Model

System Advisor Benefits

• Improve Plant Safety
• Increase operator productivity
• Improve process performance
• Reduce potential for a “missed” alarm within an alarm burst causing a safety, environmental or economic  incident
• Reduce audit costs for regulatory compliance
• Reduce costs associated with managing documentation updates
• Help ensure correct database configuration and optimize resource utilization and system performance
• Centralize Alarm Shelving management
• Complete change tracking
• Complete MOC workflow process with email alerts

This Service and Alarm Management tools are DCS vendor agnostic.

[Rodrigo_Garcia]

Veru interesting topic! Thnaks for sharing!

[AnilNP]

Thank you, Muthu.

And with the Advanced Queries feature, users can build the custom SQL queries on the raw data on Alarm related KPIs and for the alarm assessments, and consolidated all their analysis or assessments (KPI, Alarms, Change Tracking, OAJ and Advanced Queries) into a single report using Custom Reports feature.

Thanks

Anil

[PLC-Easy]

Alarm musings. 

Alarming has always been one of the aspects of a control system that rarely gets the attention that it deserves.

Alarming is a specialism that like any other engineering effort, requires design documents, detailed planning and periodic/scheduled maintenance. Alarming is a process that follows a specific sequence of actions directly corresponding with control functionality executed in the PLC/controller. To setup effective alarming, the subject matter expertise creates an alarm management philosophy that integrates the process control philosophy with the exceptions that the operator needs to action/be aware of. Based on this alarm management philosophy an alarm rationalization is created and implemented in the SCADA system. This is not only a design and development effort but should also be an ongoing effort throughout the operation of the installation.

Experience learns that maintain an alarm rationalization is rarely done properly if done at all. A neglected alarm configuration in the control system (philosophy and rationalization) always leads to production losses, quality variations, energy losses and worse.... bad accidents (remember Chernobyl 1986, BP Oil Refinery Texas City 2005 ?).

What if.......

Since alarming is a process that follows a well defined sequence of events that has a 1-1 correlation with the process control functionality, would it be possible to automate the alarm process in the PLC and integrate this with control functionality for the plant? Such innovation would significantly reduce development and maintenance efforts, but best of all, would prevent alarming to become ineffective and eliminating the associated losses and accidents.

How great of a feature that would be to have in our plants?

This is not future musings but is in fact one of the differentiating features of the Schneider based PLC-Easy solution.

If you would like to learn more about this, check out the Exchange Digital Products section:

https://shop.exchange.se.com/en-US/apps/60580/plc-easy?list=Search%20Results%20Page

or plc-easy dot com

PLC-Easy is simply Un-Mazing automation.