Alarms, alerts and annunciations

This paper adresses the current problems, with alarm floods that may occur in process control rooms, power production and distribution plants, transportation systems and patient monitoring systems in intensive care or operating rooms. The conclusion of the problem discussion in Section 2 is that the alarm problem should be tackled at the root, namely by changing the way alarms are generated. A less crude alarm system, tentatively called the companion, is presented as an alternative solution. This companion should know about the operator's intentions. When the process responds normally to the operator's actions, information about changes in the process is presented in a non-instrusive manner. Unforeseen aberrations of the process or improper or forgotten actions from the operator give rise to alerts. True alarms are only generated in situations that require the immediate attention of the operator. Development of the companion requires a fair amount of knowledge about the process. This knowledge must in some way be formalized for use in a computer, an adapted version of Multilevel Flow Modelling (MFM) is deemed suitable for representing this knowledge.