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New CVE version 2.5.3 is here!
A growing number of customers are now using multicore processors. CVE 2.5.3 automatically makes use of multiple cores if present to speed up the drawing. It also uses an improved drawing algorithm developed as part of a grant-funded research project.Together these improvements can reduce the drawing time for large datasets...
The New Methods for Alarm Rationalisation
Only when you recognise that false alarms are viewed as a fact of life, do you comprehend how serious the issue is. Operating under widened alarms not only has an impact upon control room safety but also significantly impacts production, resulting in financial burdens.
Geometric Process Control (GPC)
Geometric Process Control (GPC) is essentially a patented graphical technology which has been applied to the process industries to enable new levels of process control that were previously not achievable. Process engineers can directly leverage their process knowledge without mathematical intervention.
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New CVE version 2.5.3 is here!
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The New Methods for Alarm Rationalisation
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Geometric Process Control (GPC)
Alarm Rationalization - better alarm limits in less time
- Details
- Published on Friday, 09 March 2012 09:35
Alarm Rationalization - Operator Alarms are the first line of defence for a process
They must give the operator sufficient time to diagnose and respond to a problem before it can grow and cause a plant trip. The values at which the alarm limits or alarm setpoints are set is therefore very important but, surprisingly, there was never a science-based method for determining alarm limit values before GPC.
The GPC method is different from all the other Alarm Rationalization methods you have encountered in that it starts from process history data instead of the alarm log and provides predictions of alarm performance during the Rationalization Process and the preceding 'Bad Actor' resolution step.
Why use process history and not the alarm log?
Process History contains a wealth of information about process behaviour and process operating envelopes under many different process operating conditions. The alarm log only contains information about the performance of the existing alarms based on the wrongly-set alarm limits that you know need to be rationalized. The GPC method relates the alarm limits to an operating envelope of the process so takes into account the way that process and result variables interact with each other. It is all made possible by CVE’s ability to let you see and explore operating envelopes of your process covering hundreds of variables.
How can you predict alarm performance?
From the richness of information in process history CVE can calculate the number of alarms and the annunciation rates that would be experienced for any actual or planned set of alarm limits. The alarm count and annunciation rate are displayed in trend-plots so that you can see how alarm performance varied over a recent time period compared to the alarm limits that you actually used during that period. And as you move the mouse to alter the planned alarm limits the performance trends update giving an immediate prediction of performance. Used live during alarm review meetings will transform them from opinion-based to fact-based so they will become a lot shorter and you and all the other attendees will save a large amount of time.
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