manage your alarm system with isa 18.2, iec 62682 · 2020. 6. 23. · the isa-18.2 and ie 62682...

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Manage Your Alarms System with ISA 18.2, IEC 62682

Overview Research has shown that a well-managed alarm system results in production efficiency, product quality and operator effectiveness. Since 1991, alarm management standards have been published and currently the ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682 are the most widely accepted.

This document discusses how you can use XLReporter to manage your alarm system.

What is an Alarm? According to the ISA, “an alarm is an audible and/or visible means of indicating to the operator an equipment malfunction, process deviation or abnormal condition requiring a response.” The phrase “requiring a response” is crucial to this definition.

The ISA 18.2 and IEC 62682 define a 7-step Alarm Management Cycle program from Identification and Implementation to Monitoring and Assessment. XLReporter’s key role in this 7 step cycle is Monitoring and Assessment where it analyzes the alarms database and recommends changes.

Why Implement Alarm Management? A well-functioning alarm management system can help the system run closer to ideal conditions. This results in a higher yield as well as higher quality which directly affect the bottom line.

Studies have shown that there is a 3-8 % reduction in productivity due to abnormal situations. An alarm management system can increase uptime by identifying these situations so they can be quickly rectified.

Alarm management can improve safety and prevent accidents by reducing the possibility of missing critical alarms in the system.

Key Design Principles To have an effective alarm management system, the following principles must be applied:

Every alarm should have a defined response.

Adequate time should be allowed for the operator to carry out the defined response.

Every alarm presented to the operator should be useful, relevant and unique.

Operators should not get overwhelmed with alarms.

Alarms should be prioritized and easily understandable.

According to the EEMUA, “if the operator response cannot be defined then it is NOT an alarm.”


Alarm Reports XLReporter provides two types of alarm reports: standard and advanced alarm reports, the advanced adhering to the ISA-18.2/IEC 62682 standards. The advanced reports will require the Advanced Module Pack.

Standard Alarm Reports Standard alarm reports are populated with data resulting from database SQL queries.

Some examples of standard alarm reports include:

Alarm Dashboard

The alarm dashboard report collects alarm history over the day and displays the top 5 most frequently alarms and also shows their behavior relative to each other.

Alarm Gantt Chart


The alarm gantt chart displays the timeline and duration of each alarm that occurred. This is useful in identifying sequences and patterns of alarms.

Alarms with Process Values

The alarms with process values combines alarms and process history into a single in-line log. This can be used to correlate the behavior of the process as a consequence of an alarm.

Advanced Reports The ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682 propose a standard that can be used to measure the performance of an alarm system. This lead to the development of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the Average Alarm Rate and Percent of Chattering alarms. The standard also suggested thresholds that the KPIs can be compared with to monitor their acceptability.

XLReporter shows this information as a dashboard as follows.


Any indicator that is out of specification can be rectified by knowing the root cause. XLReporter provides additional layers of information down to the Tag/Attribute level so that engineers can use this information to re-tune or rationalize their system e.g., resetting alarm set points and dead bands.

For large systems, the rationalization process can be overwhelming and so an expert in this procedure would be beneficial. SyTech partnered with exida to provide the necessary expert assistance with alarm rationalization as well as implementation.

Data Connector The first step in creating alarm reports is to setup a data connector. For standard alarms this would require a Database connector. For advanced reports, XLReporter provides a specific connector for Alarm Management which is configured as part of the project.

The connector supports Rockwell Software FactoryTalk Alarms and Events, Emerson Automation Solutions DeltaV Event Journal, AVEVA Historian Alarms (formerly Wonderware Historian Alarms) and Siemens SIMATIC PCS7.

After the Provider is selected, the Primary Database is set to where the alarm data is stored.

With the Primary Database is established, the Table/View Name is set to the table or view holding alarms. XLReporter provides a default which can be changed.

Settings The Settings pushbutton is used to access specific settings for the connector. The values displayed are defaulted based on the Provider selected. In most cases, these settings do not need to be edited.

The settings on the Alarm Cycle tab set filter thresholds which can be applied to a report when the alarm metrics are calculated. Without this option, the alarm metrics can easily be distorted by excessive “noise” caused by chattering and fleeting alarms.


Four filter thresholds are provided, two low cycle and two high cycle.

If a low cycle filter is used in a report then any alarm with a cycle less than or equal to the low value will not be considered in the calculations. This provides a mechanism to eliminate alarms that are “fleeting” or “chattering”.

Likewise, if a high cycle filter is used in a report, then any alarm with a cycle greater than or equal to the high values will not be considered in the calculations. This provides a mechanism to eliminate alarms that are “stale”.

Out-of the Box Templates XLReporter provides two “out-of-box” report templates when the alarm management connector is configured, the Alarm Report and Alarm Analysis.

Alarm Report The Alarm Report template is a comprehensive multi-sheet report that provides the key performance indicators described in the ISA 18.2 standard together with the underlying causes.


Alarm Analysis The Alarm Analysis template is a comprehensive filter-enabled dashboard that loads all the alarms for a specified time frame and provides the tools to analyze the data to discover patterns and anomalies.

The rightmost column show the Alarm Cycle settings described earlier. Every alarm shown will be tagged if the condition is met by setting the column value 1 (which can then be used as a filter).

The template is designed with filters for each column which are used by selecting a value from the dropdown in the heading of the column. More than one filter can be applied at any one time providing a powerful dashboard to provide custom analysis of the alarms.

Custom Alarm Reports In addition to the two “out-of-box” templates, tools are provided for the user to create custom alarm reports and combine them other data sources. For example, over the time period of the report there may be the need to see summary calculations from the historian in order to determine if there are any correlations in behavior.

Creating a custom report is performed in the template Design Studio. The first step is to create a layout of the report and then to add the data groups for the data connectors supplying the content.


In the case of advanced alarm metrics, an alarm group is used. This is an advancement on the standard data groups that interface to historians and databases. The group contains a number of Instances of Sub-Reports to provide data to the report. Multiple instances of the same sub report for the same report are supported.

Web Publishing Responsive Web Reports and Dashboards Any device with a web browser can access scheduled reports or produce reports on-demand. In other words, any authenticated user connected to the process network can access reports and dashboards from a desktop, phone or tablet.

The report responds to the display size of the device. This means that a user can view in-depth information from their desktop or from the process floor using reports and dashboards on the phone to perform alarm analysis.


Case Studies Alarm Monitoring Requirement

An oil and gas facility needs to keep their engineering group informed of the top 10 most frequently occurring alarms so that they can focus on issues that are affecting the operator performance. At any time, any engineer in the group can access a report over a specified time period.

Solution

This is an example of an on-demand report that retrieves data from the advanced alarms module. From any device connected to the network an engineer can open their web browser, access the template, specify a time period and generate a report that shows a list of the most frequently occurring alarms.


Alarm Performance and Executive Summary Requirement

A manufacturing facility requires a monthly report on alarm performance for their operators and engineers on the plant floor. Another report is required that is a twelve month summary of alarm performance to show long term trends for executives to monitor improvements in the overall system.

Solution

This is an example of an automated report produced at the end of every month from the advanced alarm module to show monthly alarm performance. The summary information on this report is then exported to a relational database. The exported data in the database is then used to produce the twelve month executive summary of alarm performance. The executive summary report is then emailed to the decision makers that need to see it.

manage your alarm system with isa 18.2, iec 62682 · 2020. 6. 23. · the isa-18.2 and ie 62682...

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