Introduction to Alarm Tracing

In some systems it is important to be able to trace the origin of an alarm — that is, to know which element of the system generated it. For this purpose, hierarchy levels and alarm grouping are used to organize and classify alarms efficiently.

Imagine the following scenario

Imagine a conveyor system with 10 identical lines. Each line contains 5 conveyors, and those 5 conveyors belong to 3 production phases: phase 1: input, phase 2: waiting, phase 3: output.

The traceability of an alarm would be:

Line 1 → Phase 2 → Conveyor 3 → Alarm x

Alarm trace hierarchy

Objects

• Objects are the individual elements within a system and are the only elements that can generate alarms.

• An Object can only belong to one Group.

• Each Object can have a unique ID within the system or within the Group it belongs to, as long as it does not conflict with other Objects.

Important

The concept of Object ID must not be confused with alarm ID.

Groups

• Groups are sets of Objects grouped together to facilitate their management and classification.

• A Group can only belong to one Super.

• Each Group has a unique ID within the system or within the Super it belongs to, as long as it does not conflict with other Groups.

• At least one Group must exist per Super.

Note

A Group is a semantic element that can represent a specific section of the system. Being a semantic grouping, it has no code of its own. A Group can be thought of as an Object container with no specific function in the system.

Super

• Supers are sets of Groups grouped together to facilitate their management and classification.

• A Super belongs to Global.

• Each Super has a unique ID within the system.

• At least one Super must exist in the system.

What is a Super?

A Super should be an ESC or a higher-level element that groups the Groups and generic Objects such as cabinets or general groupings.

Global

• Global is the highest level of the hierarchy and groups all Supers.

• There can only be one Global in the system.

Note

Global is a semantic and abstract element that serves only as the root of the active alarm trace.