Gerhard Brandt, Dr.

Carsten Beuthel, BU Power Generation

Operator Effectiveness – The Result of a

Management Process Beyond Control System
Features
Why is it important to focus on the operator?

Over the total life cycle,

most important decisions
are made by the operator

The amount of information
from the process has
increased dramatically

Experience and operator
skills are invaluable assets

It is difficult and expensive
to recruit and train new
operators

© ABB Group
3BSE068054 en C
March 11, 2013 | Slide 2
Performance shaping factors

Source:
David Strobhar, PE - Beville Engineering Glenn Uhack - Louisiana State
University , Craig Harvey, Ph.D., PE –Louisiana State University
Going beyond the operator workplace
Overall control room environment is critical

Dedicated space for control, removes distractions and focus

operators on task of controlling the facility.

Visitor area to keep non-essential personnel out of the control area

Collaboration space. Meetings, troubleshooting, problem solving
with A/V tied to control center visualization.

Relaxation area for extended shift recharging, separate eating area
to avoid noise, segregated printers to remove noise
© ABB Group
3BSE068054 en C
March 11, 2013 | Slide 4
Introduction
Driving effective operations

Drive effective
Secure and powerful ergonomic HMI

operations with
complete plant
Industry standards based look & feel
information

Greater
and ergonomics
awareness

Integration of operations, information,

Faster
response and optimization applications

Better
decisions
Horizontal and vertical navigation to
areas, graphics, alarms groups, etc.

Bi-directional navigation between
Operations and Engineering

User profile recognition / user centric
information presentation
Drive effective operations with
Failure analysis support (display cross
complete plant information

Greater awareness
navigation: graphics, trend, alarm)

Faster response

EEMUA 191 and ISA SP18.2 based

Better decisions
alarm and event analysis and
management

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 6
Some standards for plant operation

IEC 60073: Basic and safety principles for man-machine interfaces, marking and identification

ISO 7000: Graphical symbols

IEC 60417-1: Graphical symbols for use on equipment

DIN 19235: Meldung von Betriebszuständen (Annunciation of Process Conditions)

DIN 30600: Graphische Symbole, Teil1: Bildzeichen (Graphical Symbols, Part 1:Icons)

DIN 2481: Wärmekraftanlagen, Graphische Symbole (Power Plants, Graphical symbols)

ANSI ISA RP.5: ON color red required

IEC 447: MMI Actuating Principles

ISO 9241-8: Requirements for display colors

DIN 66234-5, Beiblatt 2: Farbkombinationen (color combinations)

VDI/VDE 3699: Process control using display screens

Part 2: Basic principles

Part 4: Curves

Part 5: messages

VGB R170 B3: Design Standards for Instrumentation and control equipment

EEMUA P 191: Alarm Systems

ISA SP 18.2: Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries

RDS-PP: Reference Designation System for Power Plants

ISA SP101: HMI Design

EEMUA P201: Process plant control desks utilizing Human-Computer Interfaces
SCADA architecture
Server to
Server
protocol

Scalability from very small to
very large, from local to wide
area networks

Server to Server proprietary,
Concentration
efficient protocol (based on Servers
firewall-friendly TCP/IP sockets)

Front end servers for Data
Acquisition, a cost effective
building block for hierarchical
systems

All servers support store and
forward (buffering) for data and Front End
Servers
configuration changes

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 8
SCADA architecture examples: hydro power control
IEC870-5- 104
S+ Operations SWITCH Elect.
Opt. HUB Elect.Opt.
MODBUS

HUB Elect.Opt.

HUB Elect.Opt.
HUB Elect.Opt. S+ Operations
Local
Panel Local
Panel
Local
Local
Panel SERVER SERVER
Panel
+EWS

HUB Elect.Opt.
HUB Elect.Opt.
PROFIBUS
HUB Elect.Opt.
HUB Elect.Opt. HUB Elect.Opt.
Local HUB Elect.Opt. HUB Elect.Opt.

Panel
Local Local
Panel Panel
Local Local
Local Local Local
Panel Panel
Panel Panel Panel

Ethernet TCP/IP Fiber optic >6 Km

Remote Ethernet TCP/IP UDP
Remote
Panel Modulebus Fiber optic >1,2 Km
Panel Fieldbus
Remote

Remote I&O Panel

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 9 Remote I&O
Remote I&O
Operation features
High performance operator workplace

Configurable Workplace

Display Framework

Icon Bars

Alarm Buttons

Line Alarms

Examples

Alarm Group Centric

Alarm Window and
Priority Centric

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 10
Operation features
High performance navigation

Plant operators tell us they like the quick navigation…

Icon Bar
Navigation

Tab / Tile
Windows

Side Menu
Flyout
Navigation

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 11
Operation features
High performance graphics

Embedded Limit Indicators

Alarm Group / Trends
Graphic Bars Bar Graphs

Greyscale
Normal Operation

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 12
Operation features
High performance aspect links

Aspect Links (Right Click)

Quick navigation to graphics
& trends
Control

Custom links per tag

Link to documents or launch
applications:

Instruction manuals

Maintenance packages

Standard operating
procedures

Web pages
S+ Operations

Plant P&ID’s
Client

Operator notes

Control logic

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 13
Operation features
View engineering tool logic (View and Monitor)

Right click navigation

Graphic to engineering tool
logic

Alarm to Composer logic

View logic

Monitor status in real time

Navigate within Composer

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 14
Operation features
Melody IDF and SFC Viewer

© ABB Group
March 11, 2013 | Slide 15
Operation features
View HMI faceplate from engineering tool

Right click navigation

Exception Report block to faceplate

Supports engineering maintenance /

tuning

Automatically configured within system

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 16
Operation features
High performance trend window

Enhanced operator
trend feature

Icon selection bar

Mouse selectable traces

Mini preview trend

Drag focus window

Drag and drop PV’s

Export functions

Ruler views (Scooter)

User configurable

No trace limitaion

Operator trend Integrated
with history

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 17
Operation features
Information zoom (e. g. Symphony Plus)

Reduced faceplates:

Basic operations functions
are present

Standard Faceplate

Operations functions with
some extra information

Extended Faceplate

Deep information with
many analysis functions

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 18
Information Management
Making real-time business decisions

Sustain profitable
Business and performance monitoring

growth by
transforming data functions improve plant productivity and
into actionable
business decisions
profitability

Seamless view of real-time and history

Discrete tag tickers / KPI reporting

History data from all sources

Flexible ready made report templates
(e.g. SOE, trip, operation, status, etc.)

Integrated applications assess plant
equipment performance

Monitor and report equipment degradation

Performance displays indicate effects of
current conditions on plant heat rate and
fuel costs

Performance alarms and CMMS
connectivity streamlines maintenance

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 19
Information Management: integrated historian

Full featured historian integrated within

S+ Operations

Best in class historian feature and
performance wise

Excel reporting and scheduled reports

Calculation package / maintenance
totalizers

EEMUA 191 alarm management
analysis

Process optimization platform
used with OPTIMAX plant performance
applications

Supports thin client (web browser
based)

Supports full client

© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 20
Information Management
Logs/Reports (Excel integration)

Balance reports

Typical values for operation tracking

Average values

Max/in values

Totals

Trip reports

Presentation of process behavior
with configurable:

Time intervals

Time range

Maintenance reports

Informs the maintenance staff about:

Actual operating hours

Actual switching cycles

Identification of components
to be maintained
© ABB Inc.
March 11, 2013 | Slide 21
Alarm Management
How is your alarm system performing?

Do you recognise any of these behaviours?

Operators acknowledge / silence alarms without looking at or
acting on them?

Incidents or near-incidents where operators missed alarms?

Acoustic alarms turned off?

Operators don't know what particular alarms mean?

Alarms disabled / suppressed for long periods without review?

Do you measure?

Number of alarms / hour?

Number of alarms disabled / suppressed?

Time to silence / acknowledge?
Alarm Management
How is your alarm system performing?

How stressed are your operators?

Do you have a documented alarm philosophy?

Have you described roles and responsibilities?

How do you review and implement new alarms?
Alarm Management
Definition: Binary value, Event, Alarm

Binary value
On/Off Switch

value = 1 (Motor is on)
M
Temperature

value = 0 (Motor is off)
Measurement

80,00 9

8

Event (Information) 70,00

60,00
7

Motor has been switches on at 12:00 h 50,00

40,00
5

3
30,00
2
20,00
1
10,00

1 0

0,00

0 -1
10:33 11:02 11:31 12:00 12:28 12:57 13:26 13:55 14:24

Alarm (Action required)

Temperature of Motor exceeds high limit of 60,00 at 13:10 h
Alarm Management Principles
Lifecycle for Alarm Management

Assess the Current Position Alarm Philosophy Development

Typically a short focussed Goal Setting (KPIs, Project
assessment by experienced success criteria)
consultant engineer Benchmark Identify deficiencies and
Assessed against corrective actions
benchmarks and targets
Planning/Budgeting
Where are we now?

Plan Where do we want to be?

On-Going Alarm
Management
owned by operations/ Total Alarm
maintenance Alarm Design Strategy
Management
Audit and Measurement Culture Change
programme Review Alarm Rationalisation
Implement
Alarm Management
How successful were we?
Training
Continuous Alarm Management

Alarm Management as a one shot activity will not work,

because alarm system quality degrades over time

Operators have most benefit from a high quality alarm
system, so they are motivated to help to maintain it

With help of appropriate tools, operators can integrate
alarm management as part of their routines,
e.g. as part of

shift hand-over discussions

weekly team meetings

From this perspective a nuisance alarm will be handled
similar to a broken device

26
DCS operations
Integrated Alarm Analysis Tools

Supports EEMUA 191

Integrated Alarm Analysis

Instantaneous Reports

Alarm / Event Frequency

Alarms over Time

Priority Distribution

Alarm Duration

Time to Acknowledge

Alarm Performance

Loops in Manual

Operator Actions

Exceeding Threshold

Standing Alarms

Co-Occurances
Alarm systems degrade over time

Example: 2006 distribution of the top 4 alarms in a plant

Many of the top alarms appeared in delimited episodes

alarm1
alarm2
alarm3
alarm4

Reasons for such episodes:

• Device broken
• Process/automation modified

28
Shift Hand Over Report
It can be used as a checklist during the hand-over discussions
to pinpoint important issues during the last shift.

Top10 alarms Top10 controllers in manual mode Top10 disturbed signals

Alarms from last shift In manual mode last shift Disturbed signals since last shift

Active Alarms that originated in the last shift

• Most frequent alarms during the last shift
• Control loops put in manual mode during the last shift
• Control loops most frequently put in manual mode during the last shift
• Disturbed signals during the last shift

Automatically generated at the end of each shift

29
Alarm duration report

1. maintaining a good alarm system quality becomes

part of daily plant hygiene, just like brushing one’s
teeth in the morning.
2. In addition to shift hand-over reports, continuous
improvement should contain the standard and more
long-term Alarm Management feedback loops
• a monthly or annual review of the overall alarm
system quality.

30
Conclusion

Many of today‘s power plants have alarm systems that

overburden the operators with nuisance alarms

Too many alarms is as bad as too little alarms,
both results in unrecognized alarms by the operators

Guidelines like EEMUA 191 or the ISA 18.2 should be used
to improve the alarm system quality

Keeping a good alarm system quality requires continuous
effort and processes

Continuous alarm management should be part of the daily
operators routines

31
© ABB Group
March 11, 2013 | Slide 32