Region of York – Alarm Management Program

Region of York

Alarm Management Program

With a large scale SCADA upgrade project on the horizon, the Region identified the need for an alarm management program to better define what an alarm is and how to implement and manage alarms through their centralized operations center.

50% reduction in alarms

100+ sites

$115 k

Region of York - map - advanced alarm functionality

Working with the Region, Eramosa developed a comprehensive Alarm Philosophy Document which covered all 10 of the work processes outlined in the ISA-18.2 alarm management standard. A pilot project was then undertaken to identify, rationalize, redesign, and implement revised alarms for six water and wastewater outstations, and one water treatment plant.

Existing alarm information was captured in master alarm databases and then rationalized against the Alarm Philosophy Document in consultation with the Region’s operations and maintenance groups. Existing alarms that served no purpose were removed, and the remaining alarms were redesigned and implemented as part of the SCADA upgrade project. As part of the design work process, advanced alarm functionality was added to the Region’s SCADA standard to provide alarm shelving, sorting and filtering based on priority and operator responsibility, and a complete review of existing priority assignments.

Those facilities which have had the alarm management program implemented have seen a dramatic reduction in both the number of configured alarms as well as the number of alarm activations per month. The Region has also implemented several regular reports to track various KPIs and other metrics for tracking the performance of the alarm management program and to provide better insight into how their facilities are operating.

Questions about this project?

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Adam Plumstead
519.766.7207