Alarm management product generates custom reports

An ICS (Industrial Control Software) product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jun 29, 2007

Users of IMAC Xpert for Excel can generate a range of custom reports to monitor the effectiveness of their site's process alarm handling capabilities.

Industrial Control Software has released a new alarm management product called IMAC Xpert for Excel.

IMAC Xpert for Excel is an on demand alarm analysis tool allowing users to generate a range of custom reports to monitor the effectiveness of their site's process alarm handling capabilities.

Running as a simple Microsoft Excel 'add-in', the new product uses data collected from an existing IMAC Sentinel alarm monitoring system which is then passed to Xpert for Excel's database.

Using a simple report generation wizard, professionally presented custom documents can quickly be created.

Alarm count by area reports provide a count of all of the process alarms received from each area of the plant over a specified time range.

Alarm count by tag reports show the frequency of process alarms that occurred for each tag.

Alarm count over time reports information about the number of process alarms which have occurred within a specified time interval.

Operator actions by tag reports display the total number of operator actions per tag over a period of time.

Operator actions over time reports show a count of the total number of operator actions, such as operator changes.

Operator actions ratio reports show the ratio of operator actions against the number of process alarms over a configurable time interval.

Standing alarms reports give a list of all of the process alarms that were active at a specified point in time.

Standing alarms duration reports show a list of process alarms and the duration they were standing for during a specified time period.

Standing alarms over time reports show the number of standing alarms during a specified time period and how long they were standing for.

Chattering alarms repts provide a breakdown of all the process alarms which are 'chattering' (raised and cleared repeatedly) within a specified period of time.

Symptomatic alarms reports allow the user to view the association between the occurrence of an alarm (Parent) and the alarm that follows (Child).

The report displays this information in a list of parent/child relationships that occur within a specified time window starting with each parent alarm ordered in frequency.

ICS believes that IMAC Xpert for Excel is a valuable addition to the Alarm Manager Control Room Edition product suite which also includes IMAC Xpert, a real-time, analysis package based on the EEMUA 191 alarm management guidelines.

The IMAC product suite offers simple alarm management solutions intended for very small plants, or independent single plants within a large site.

With a range of 'add-on' function modules and the ability to upscale to Matrikon's Alarm Manager Enterprise Edition, IMAC offers a suitable entry level solution for organisations who want to improve alarm handling in the control room.