Increase Alarm
Effectiveness &
Reduce
Distractions With
Alarm Adviser
Adam Barnes – Product
Manager SCADA
Why did the number of alarms increase?
• Automation evolution (including fieldbus) brought more
accessible information per sensor/actuator
• Alarms are easily configurable now (no more wired) -> no
real cost at engineering or operating time to add alarms
• People (e.g. SI’s) tend to believe more is better: nothing can
happen without notice if everything has an attached alarm
2014 Software Global Client Conference
Typical observed behavior
● Operator overload leading to
● Over-acknowledgement to keep management
happy and control room quieter
● Inhibiting “noisy alarms”
● Missing important alarms
● Not being able to mitigate in proper time
2014 Software Global Client Conference
Texaco Pembroke 1994
Piper Alpha North sea 1988
Operators have too many alarms to manage
What can we do?
2014 Software Global Client Conference
First of All – Why
Alarm System Management has become an important operational tool to:
Save time and money – deal with important conditions only
Reduce risk – hardware maintenance, plant operation, incidents
Improve effectiveness of operations – focus on the real issues
2014 Software Global Client Conference
A set of Standards and Guidelines
● EEMUA 191, Alarm systems a guide to design
● Namur NA 102 Worksheet, Alarm Management
● NPD YA 711, Principles for alarm design (Norwegian petroleum doctorate slowly adopted
throughout Europe as the standard)
● VDI/VDE Guideline 3699 (process control using monitors)
● API RP-1167 Alarm Management for Pipeline Systems
● ANSI/ISA-18.2, Management of alarm systems for the process industries
ANSI/ISA-18.2
Management of
Alarm Systems
for the Process
Industries
2014 Software Global Client Conference
API RP-1167
Alarm
Management
For Pipeline
Systems
DMAIC
ANSI/ISA-18.2 offers a lifecycle
model
Define an alarm improvement
program
Measure the current situation
Analyse the areas for improvement
Improve the situation
Control and hold the gain with
metrics
2014 Software Global Client Conference
Wonderware Alarm Adviser
● Wonderware Alarm Adviser is a web based tool for
discovering nuisance alarms in your process
system through interactive visual analysis
● Total, frequent, standing, fleeting and
consequential views allow nuisance alarm to be
easily identified
● Dashboards make it possible to benchmark and
maintain your alarm performance in line with
industry standards
2014 Software Global Client Conference
Product Walkthrough
Alarm Adviser - Overview
● Common UI/UX
● Up to 10 years of historic alarm data
● Multiple sites/plants/systems
● Connects to
● Vijeo Citect
● InTouch
● System Platform
● ClearSCADA
● Foxboro (future)
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Configuration – Priority & Severity
Dashboard
The dashboard is
available to all users
Dashboard – User defined KPIs
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Dashboard Widgets
Dashboard Widgets - Customization
Dashboard Widgets - Customization
Alarm Activity - Time Range
Alarm Activity – Severity Distribution
Alarm Activity and Filtering
Alarm Activity and Filtering
Alarm Activity – Data Table
Frequent Alarms
Frequent Alarms – Detail of Selected
Long Standing Alarms – Most Frequent
Long Standing Alarms – Most Frequent
Long Standing Alarms - Longest
Long Standing Alarms – Total
Fleeting Alarms – Most Frequent
Fleeting Alarms – Export Data Table
Fleeting Alarms – Total
Consequence/Cascading
Consequence/Cascading
Favourites - Adding
Favourites - Managing
Solution References
2014 Software Global Client Conference
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