PCA weight and Johnson transformation based alarm threshold optimization in chemical processes

To alleviate the heavy load of massive alarm on operators, alarm threshold in chemical processes was optimized with principal component analysis (PCA) weight and Johnson transformation in this paper. First, few variables that have high PCA weight factors are chosen as key variables. Given a total alarm frequency to these variables initially, the allowed alarm number for each variable is determined according to their sampling time and weight factors. Their alarm threshold and then control limit percentage are determined successively. The control limit percentage of non-key variables is determined with 3σ method alternatively. Second, raw data are transformed into normal distribution data with Johnson function for all variables before updating their alarm thresholds via inverse transformation of obtained control limit percentage. Alarm thresholds are optimized by iterating this process until the calculated alarm frequency reaches standard level (normally one alarm per minute). Finally, variables and their alarm thresholds are visualized in parallel coordinate to depict their variation trends concisely and clearly. Case studies on a simulated industrial atmospheric-vacuum crude distillation demonstrate that the proposed alarm threshold optimization strategy can effectively reduce false alarm rate in chemical processes.