Objectives 
One of Europe’s largest oil and gas producers wanted a centralized view of all operational assets, with a harmonized view of all the alarm information, available at the enterprise level from their headquarters. They required a versatile solution, enabling them to improve their operability through the optimization of each system across a vast network of more than 1,500 sites and assets.
The objective was to have increased insight into the alarm situation, with enhanced visibility of alarm system performance to compare across every location, site and asset. In line with their alarm philosophy, they wanted the capability to identify problematic alarms, address areas of concern and incorporate alarm rationalization and management of change functionality at the corporate level.
Each site and assets had its own control system, these are predominantly peripheral devices like Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC’s) with several Distributed Control Systems (DCS) at larger and more extensive facilities. With a large volume of assets, covering many aspects of the energy value chain, systems have been supplied from multiple vendors. Operational data from PLC’s and control systems, alongside alarm and events, are passed into seven separate data hubs. These data hubs are acquiring and collecting huge volumes of data, which needed to be normalised and centralised in the company headquarters. With a single view of all operational assets, combined with alarm data the customer is in a position to monitor and improve alarm system performance to keep their environment, people and assets safe.
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Solution
The customer established a clear objective from the start of this project. They wanted an overview of each asset across a huge geographic area with intuitive navigation and accessibility, combined with alarm information and insights to improve their alarm management practices. It was also important to have an archive of historical information available, including trending of each field instrument that could be combined with advanced systems for extensive diagnostics. This information was required for the entire hierarchy (over 1,500 sites and assets) that was to be available from a centralised location. To meet the project requirements, Yokogawa included the following solutions:
Connecting Data - To connect data to vast deployment of distributed PLC’s and control systems over a vast geographic region, FAST/TOOLS was selected.
Data Repository - Exaquantum collects, stores and processes alarm and events and process data from all assets and sites via FAST/TOOLS. Historical data is also available, with trending of each instrument in the field which can be combined with advanced systems for extensive diagnostics.
Real-time Alarms - FAST/TOOLS provides rich trend visualization capabilities for real-time as well as historical operational data. It presents a unified and normalized view of multiple areas-of-interest across all assets with real-time interactions including, alarm filtering from both current and historical alarm displays, alarm shelving or suppression and alarm eclipsing.
Alarm Management - With Exaquantum ARA and AMD, Yokogawa’s alarm management applications, alarm information is accessible via a web interface. ARA provides an alarm reporting and analysis dashboard for a comprehensive overview of alarm system performance. Problematic alarms are instantly visible for operators, and performance reports highlight overloaded sectors, quickly identifying areas of concern. With AMD, Yokogawa’s master alarm database, the alarm champion and subject matter experts at central headquarters are able to assess problematic alarms and initiate reviews of the alarm configuration.
Key Takeaways
Centralised Alarm Management Solution
Yokogawa provided a unified and centralised solution at company headquarters, to handle and monitor alarms in real-time and to implement the best alarm management practices to improve the alarm system throughout its life cycle.
Project Size and Scale
This was a huge application for both the customer and Yokogawa, not only just in terms of the geographic area, but also in terms of the volume and variety of data that needed to be normalized and accessed from company headquarters. This project included more than 1,500 sites and assets dispersed across seven separate data hubs.
Collaborative FAST/TOOLS and Exaquantum
This project sets the foundations for large scale alarm management projects involving FAST/TOOLS and Exaquantum alarm management applications. Functionality and interoperability between Exaquantum ARA, AMD and FAST/TOOLS have reached new levels, providing an expansive and large scale and fully comprehensive alarm management solution to analyse and rationalise their alarm systems.
