A multi-setpoint delay-timer alarming strategy for industrial alarm monitoring

Alarm systems play an important role in industry to notify operators of abnormal and fault situations. In real industrial plants, however, a majority of abnormal alarm phenomena, including false alarms and missed alarms, always interfere with operators' judgment. Mathematical analysis of traditional univariate alarm techniques indicates that the alarm setpoint, the dynamic alarm order, and the alarm algorithm are the three main elements of alarm annunciation and alarm clearance. Based on this, we proposed a multi-setpoint delay-timer alarming strategy which optimizes the false alarm rate (FAR), the missed alarm rate (MAR), and the averaged alarm delay (AAD) by increasing the number of univariate alarm setpoints. The proposed alarming strategy is able to achieve a balance between alarming accuracy and alarming sensitivity. Its effectiveness is demonstrated with both simulation and industrial case studies.