Industrial Alarm Correlation for Operator Action Recommendations
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Solution Overview
Problem
Process plants face overwhelming alarm floods, leading to confusion and potential misidentification of critical alarms, especially for inexperienced operators, exacerbating the challenge as experienced operators retire, resulting in costly and inconsistent actions.
Innovation Solution
A system and method for action determination that captures and correlates past operator actions with process events, using machine learning algorithms to recommend appropriate actions based on historical data, filtering irrelevant alarms, and utilizing natural language processing to map related events and actions in feature space.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If alarm systems monitor all field devices and process controllers, then comprehensive monitoring capability is improved, but operator confusion and identification of critical alarms deteriorates due to alarm floods
Solution Approach 1:
The alarm system segments the flood of alarms by computing an alarm correlation map that groups related alarms together. This segmentation allows operators to see correlations between alarms rather than being overwhelmed by individual alarm signals, making it easier to identify critical issues while maintaining comprehensive monitoring coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The alarm correlation map acts as an intermediary between the raw alarm data and the operator. Instead of presenting tens of thousands of individual alarm signals directly to operators, the system processes these signals through the correlation map to present a structured view of alarm relationships, reducing operator confusion while maintaining monitoring reliability.
2Reliability
If experienced operators handle alarm situations, then decision quality is improved, but consistency and availability deteriorate as experienced operators retire
Solution Approach 1:
The system captures historical alarm data and operator actions, then uses this feedback to continuously improve alarm correlation patterns. By analyzing past alarm episodes and their resolutions, the system learns to better predict and correlate alarm relationships, enabling junior operators to receive guidance based on accumulated expert knowledge without requiring experienced operators to be physically present.
Solution Approach 2:
The system captures and stores the knowledge and decision-making patterns of experienced operators in the form of alarm correlation maps and historical action data. This copying of expert knowledge into the system allows junior operators to access and learn from experienced operators' decision-making processes, maintaining decision quality regardless of operator experience level or availability.
3Reliability
If tens of thousands of data signals are generated, then monitoring coverage is improved, but information processing complexity and operator workload deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system merges tens of thousands of individual alarm signals into a condensed alarm correlation map that shows relationships between alarms. By combining redundant and related alarm information into correlated groups, the system maintains comprehensive monitoring coverage while dramatically reducing the complexity of information that operators must process.
Data Source
Figure 1
AI summary
The present invention relates to a system for action determination. The system comprises an input unit, a processing unit, and an output unit. The input unit is configured to provide the processing unit with information relating to a plurality of past actions over a period of time associated with the operation of an industrial process. The input unit is configured to provide the processing unit with information relating to a plurality of past process events over the time period associated with the operation of the industrial process. The input unit is configured to provide the processing unit with information relating to a new process event. The processing unit is configured to determine a correlation between at least some of the plurality of past actions with at least some of the past process events. The processing unit is configured to determine at least one recommended action from the information relating to the new process event, the determination comprising utilization of the determined correlation. The output unit is configured to output the at least one recommended action.