In Alarm Systems, where status changes are notified through display screens, it is common for
the number of activations presented to exceed the limit recommended in international
guidelines and standards. When this happens, the functionality of these systems is partially or
totally lost.
Generally, a high percentage of the alarms triggered are momentary alarms, which do not
require any action by the operator, so they could be eliminated.
In order to avoid increasing the high number of engineering hours required to eliminate these
alarms by implementing modifications to the control system, Tecnatom has developed the
TecOS ALERT solution, which provides an automatic filtering layer on the alarms generated. In
this way, the alarms generated and stored in the “alarm history” are classified into two
categories; “important alarms” and “filtered alarms”, so that the operator can focus its
attention on the “important alarms” display.
As it can be seen in the images shown below, there is a high difference between the alarms
presented in the “alarm history” display on the left and the ones that appear in “important
alarms” display on the right, making the above-mentioned clear.
Apart from the aforementioned automatic filtering, TecOS ALERT has two additional
functionalities:
- Manual filtering that temporarily prevents the presentation, in the display of
important alarms, of those alarms that are not being filtered automatically and, which,
in the opinion of the operating personnel, do not provide relevant information. - Reporting that provides valuable information that facilitates the realization of:
– Maintenance of the alarm system and its associated instrumentation.
– Root cause analysis after an operational incident.
– Identification of candidate alarms to be manually filtered.
Currently, there are several generation units that benefit from the TecOS ALERT solution, such
as the Tuxpan III and IV Combined Cycles (owned by GPG and located in Mexico) that take
advantage of the possibilities offered by data science and the knowledge of experts in
operation of power generation plants, to reduce the cognitive load of the operator and
therefore the probability of incurring in an error during operation.
The TecOS ALERT solution enables alarm systems to be optimized at a lower cost and in a
significantly shorter time than traditional alarm management approaches.
For more information visit TecOS ALERT
