Detecting and reducing redundancy in alarm networks

Alarm systems are vital for the safe operation of almost all large-scale industrial and technical installations, such as chemical plants or power stations. The optimization of alarm systems has great potential to improve the safety of these installations, and also to increase their profitability through the reduction of automated shut-downs and suboptimal operation modes. In this work we present a new approach to alarm system optimization through the identification of redundant alarms. Our approach is based on a ranking of alarms by their connectivity in the alarm network. We also propose an overall redundancy measure for the alarm system which can be used to monitor performance improvements after redundant alarms have been removed. We present an example demonstrating that our ranking technique provides operational staff with useful information, allowing them to enhance the effectiveness of their existing alarm systems.