ABB ABILITY™ SYMPHONY® PLUS Ensuring each alarm is meaningful

Ensuring each alarm is meaningful

A high-quality alarm system is an essential tool for operators to run a plant safely

and efficiently.

ABB alarm philosophy in action

In many plants, modern devices and systems gen

erate all types of alarms too easily, which unfortu

nately leads to a flood of alarms and overwhelms

the operators’ cognitive capabilities. With S+

Operations, ABB’s alarm management philosophy

is fully integrated within its HMI environment.

This improves navigation, analysis and handling,

and reduces the cost associated with running and

maintaining a non-integrated alarm management

system. Without a separate system to distract

them, operators can devote more time to running

a safe and efficient process.

Integrated alarm management

S+ Operations’ integrated advanced alarm man

agement solution provides all the necessary

instruments for efficient and stringent alarm

management. The EEMUA 191 and ISA SP 18.2-

compliant alarm analysis tools help users to cate

gorize occurring alarms, while the integrated

alarm management system keeps operators

focused and undistracted, allowing them to act

with confidence.

Embedded alarm management features

S+ Operations’ alarm management functions

help promote safe plant operations. Simple

“right click” navigation from alarm list to

alarm-context information improves the opera

tor’s capability to detect and respond to abnor

mal situations in an instant. Further, embedded

alarm management features such as alarm group

ing, filtering, inhibiting, shelving, and suppress

ing remove unnecessary alarms to bring those

alarms that need action to the forefront and

define alarm relevancy to the operator.

Alarm Portal advanced alarm analysis tools

S+ Operations have advanced alarm handling and

analysis tools that support implementation of

alarm management strategies based on EEMUA

191 and ISA 18.2 requirements, S+ Operations’

alarm management functions lead to alarm sta

tistical analysis and advanced alarm reports.

Pre-configured alarm report types such as Alarm

priority distribution, Alarm duration, Alarm per

formance levels, Alarm and event frequency,

Alarms over time, Time to acknowledge, Co-oc

currences and Detailed event sequence support

the implementation and maintenance of a plant’s

effective alarm management strategy to ensure

that each alarm generated will alert, inform, and

guide the operator to take the proper action.