Alarm Benchmark Service

The first phase in identifying Alarm Management performance gaps.

The Benchmark phase provides a basic analysis of alarm data and compares it with industry guidelines. This provides indications of where to focus, and a possible path for handling any issues (i.e., upselling the next levels of alarm management services).

Phase two is a Fingerprint Service. It is used to investigate current alarm handling practices at the site. The Fingerprint service provides more “depth” and is used to establish a plan to resolve issues and improve alarm management.  

In the next steps (Implementation Phase), ABB experts will work with you to ensure that solutions are delivered.

Are you looking for support or purchase information?

Schedule
Improvement Plan
Deliverables

Phase one, The Alarm Benchmark, typically takes three days of work to complete and one meeting to present the results. It is usually performed remotely. Alternatively, onsite work (or remote access) is needed to obtain data.

Step    Title  Description
1. Get data Approximately one month’s worth of process alarms (and events) from DCS/ICSS
2. Analyze data Upload to Event Analyzer tool (or similar).
Configure tool to recognize event from alarms/process from system/maintenance etc.
Run KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
3. Create report Add comments describing KPI’s / graphs
Add comments benchmarking data with standards
Suggest next steps
4. Present to Customer Presentation of findings/suggestions
Deliver report document

The Alarm Benchmark Service indicates areas that should be investigated further and presents possible recommendations per the ABB Alarm Lifecycle Management offering.

    Problem Condition  Recommendation
1.   High Average alarm rate. Look to reduce the general alarm rate.
Investigate alarm rationalization service.
2.   High Peak rates Investigate the peaks further.
Get started Managing these alarms through ABBs “Kick starter” service.
3.   Top 10 alarm issues (these are a high % of the total alarms) Investigate the peaks further.
Get started Managing these alarms through ABBs “Kick starter” service.
4.   Poor Alarm priority distribution of annunciated alarms (i.e., too many high priority alarms) Look to align the priority distribution to recommendations from the international standards (like IEC 68828)
Investigate alarm rationalization service in order to reprioritize the alarms.

The results will be documented in the Alarm Benchmark report and final presentation.  The goal of the ABB Alarm Benchmark is to produce a document that can be used as a benchmark, aid and technical database to capture the work of the Benchmark in a logical format.

The Event Analyzer tool can generate a report template with all the KPIs.

Executive Chapter

The Executive Report highlights current best practices and summarizes EEMUA 191 benchmark findings.

The executive report displays a rating (Good, Fair, Caution, Problem) for each of the assessment items for both alarm system performance indices and alarm system management.  The report also includes a summary of the findings divided into areas that ABB can provide support.

Technical Chapter

This report is the backbone to all the findings and recommendations reported in the Executive report.  ABB takes great effort to ensure that all findings and indications are drawn from actual data rather than personal bias.  The technical report consists of graphs, tables, and “interpretations”.  This report is an excellent reference for future improvements and can act as a performance benchmark for current operating conditions.

The Technical Report includes alarm statistics of the collected data with comparisons to EEMUA 191 guidelines. The report includes an analysis of the alarm rates, frequency, priorities, and operator response times.  The report also compares the current management of the alarm system relative to best practices.

Final Presentation

The final presentation contains a summary of findings, a description of the methodology used for the data collection and analysis, and a list of recommendations.

We also recommend

Loading documents
Select region / language