Alarm Management Solutions

Many process plants have some kind of alarm problem, a widespread issue amongst manufacturing plants is alarm overload. As formerly independent systems are integrated for more effective operation by fewer operators, each operator has to monitor an increasingly wider area and consequently deal with more alarms. Without rigorous alarm rationalisation efforts, alarm flooding becomes a serious problem and increases the risk of safety and environmental incidents.

There is mounting pressure from regulators to adopt better practices and standards (ISA 18.2, IEC 62682, EEMUA 191). Many organisations have not fully addressed the alarm issues for lack of resources and expertise. The objective of alarm management is to increase the quality of alarms, it’s not just about reducing the number of alarms.

In response, Yokogawa proposes a smart approach to alarm management that helps customers achieve safe and agile plant operations based on the concept of combining practical bottom-up solutions with fundamental top-down improvements. We provide the best alarm management solutions to fit the needs of the customer using knowledge, experience and tools.

Yokogawa Exaquantum/ARA R3.50 (April 2024)

Exaquantum/ARA assists supervisors and managers in implementing effective alarm management by highlighting patterns in alarm and event occurrences making it easier to identify and correct areas of concern.

Exaquantum/ARA: key features

• Up to 45 standard, plus 2 configurable reports, many based on EEMUA 191, ANSI/ISA-18.2-2009 and IEC-62682
• On demand access to Operator and Area KPIs
• Drill down from summary reports to the individual alarms and events
• Detailed filtering options to expose hidden problem areas
• Automatic replication of CENTUM plant hierarchy
• Reports can be scheduled for printing, storing and emailing
• Integration with Yokogawa’s CENTUM Distributed Control Systems (DCS), Consolidated Alarm Management System (CAMS), Unified Alarms and Conditions Server (UACS) and FAST/TOOLS SCADA
• Interfaces available for non-Yokogawa systems via OPC A&E 1.1
• API to access ARA KPIs, with access via an optional OPC DA 2.05a server also available
• Connector available to make ARA alarm management data and KPIs accessible to Microsoft Power BI for reporting
• Pre-built Microsoft Power BI alarm management data model, dashboards and reports
  

ARA Alarm Data with the reach of Power BI

 A Microsoft Power BI Connector and pre-built data model, hierarchical dashboards and reports are available as an option to visualise and explore the ARA Alarm Management KPIs and Metrics in Power BI for superior alarm understanding and share this information at the corporate level.

Alarm Management overview video

Alarm Management Brochure

Alarm management is critical to help ensure the smooth running of operations for safer and more reliable plants. However, if alarms are poorly managed, they can compromise plant safety and negatively impact performance and profitability for organizations in the process industry.

Alarm Management Solutions

• Sequence of Events Recorder (Exaquantum/SER)
• Alarm Reporting and Analysis (Exaquantum/ARA)
• Alarm Master Database (Exaquantum/AMD)

Alarm Reporting and Analysis Videos

To find out more about our Alarm Management solutions, please visit our corporate site.