Alarm philosophy

Alarm philosophy

The alarm philosophy shall provide criteria, definitions, principles, and responsibilities for all of the alarm management lifecycle stages. It facilitates:

  • consistency across the alarm system,

  • consistency with risk management goals and objectives,

  • good engineering practices,

  • alarm system that supports an effective operator response.

Alarm philosophy contents

The IEC62682 standard asks for the following specification in an alarm philosophy:

  • Purpose of alarm system,

  • Definitions, References,

  • Roles and responsibilities

  • Principles of alarm design,

  • Guidance for rationalisation of alarms list,

  • Alarm class definitions (types of alarms, priorities, handling principles for a class),

  • Alarm history preservation,

  • Highly managed alarms handling (the alarms which require special procedures, i.e. due to law requirements),

  • HMI/GUI design principles (colouring, symbols, naming conventions),

  • Prioritisation method,

  • Performance monitoring,

  • Maintenance guidance,

  • Testing requirements,

  • Alarm documentation requirements,

  • Implementation guidance,

  • Management of change,

  • Training,

  • Related site procedures,

  • Site-specific requirements,

  • Audit (frequency, topics),

Alarm system requirements specification (ASRS)

The ASRS provides functional requirements specification. It is the document developed as part of the alarm philosophy stage and implementation. Its purpose is to detail the functional requirements expected of the control system. On all development stages, the ASRS shall be consistent with the alarm philosophy.

The ASRS contains a specification for some of the following:

  • alarm attributes,

  • alarm HMI (i.e. PANIC GUI),

  • alarm communication protocol (i.e. Tango),

  • alarm record logging (i.e. SNAP, elasticsearch, text files),

  • alarm record analysis,

  • alarm priorities available,

  • visible annunciation functionality (colours, symbols),

  • audible alarm annunciation functionality,

  • alarm summary display functionality,

  • alarm shelving, suppression,

  • alarm configuration functionality

  • alarm log capabilities,

  • alarm monitoring and assessment functionality,

  • alarm auditing functionality,

  • advanced alarming functionality.

The ASRS shall be compared with capabilities if the control system / Alarm Management System tool selected. If specific criteria are not met, either ASRS shall be updated (providing that it is still compatible with the alarm philosophy) or the control system / the alarm system tools shall be corrected.

Each alarm system requirements from ASRS should be tested before the operation stage.