BMS Alarms Reporting and Functions

The BMS provides a vehicle for the visibility of plant failure, patterns, annunciation of alarms and the reporting function. In particular it shall provide the standard functions stated below:

Alarms shall be generated under the following conditions:

• Digital input contact change from normal to alarm condition (either open or closed).
• Digital input condition either matches or mismatches another digital point type
• Digital point has accumulated hours run totalisation limits.
• Analogue input has exceeded high or low limit alarm level
• Analogue input totalisation has exceeded alarm level
• Maximum demand alarm condition
• Conditional based on a number of digital / analogue conditions being met

All bms alarms shall have the ability to be filtered to eliminate “nuisance” alarms. Methods shall include:

• transient inhibit timers to make allowance for fluttering contacts or slow internal responses
• inhibits timers checking that the condition has been active for a set time for both into alarm and alarm clear

• inhibits timers  allowing  for  alarms  which  are  cross  referencing  to other  plant  to stabilize

It shall be possible to enter a hysteresis value on analogue alarms.

It shall be possible to send alarms to a file at the BMS terminals without presenting them to the users until a predetermined time such as a shift change when all “delayed” alarms received will be presented to the users for appropriate action.

If alarm conditions are not cleared then these shall be retransmitted after a pre-determined time configurable based on alarm priority. These shall be identified as a distinct alarm to represent their retransmission.

The annunciation of each alarm filter shall be configurable for both color and text.

Alarm Configuration Facility

Alarm presentation shall configurable per user, for font type and size and selection of information to be displayed for each point type thus allowing the necessary level of information to suit the user requirement. The alarm review format selection shall include as a minimum the following:

-Date / time of alarm

-Mnemonic, controller number, controller point number, point type (e.g. AI, DI, DO, time, set-point etc.).

-Short point title, long point title.

-Primary value (e.g. Flow 1.5 L/s), secondary value (e.g. totalised 2950 Litres).

-Alarm priority and limits if applicable.

-Totalised values and limits if applicable (e.g. hours run and maintenance levels).

-Name of the user who acknowledged the alarm, time of acknowledgement and BMS terminal number.

-Supporting text if entered at the time of acknowledgement.

The printout for alarms shall contain information as detailed above.

Alarm status shall be identified by a colored icon representing unacknowledged alarms, acknowledged alarms, alarm clear and re transmitted alarms.

BMS Alarms Filtration & Integration

It shall be possible to extract information via filters from the alarm database for presentation in a management report for alarm activity. It shall be possible to filter for a given alarm type, start/end time and date, relative time, selection of either mnemonic, mask, controller number point number, etc.

This shall present information in a dedicated window for analysis and printing. This window shall be live with new alarm events that meet the filter requirements being displayed.

Alarms shall be able to initiate BMS terminal actions on specific alarm activity, such as high temperature alarm, Hours run alarm limit 1, etc. These BMS terminal actions shall include the ability to present a schematic associated with the alarm, a multimedia sound file being played, a Windows *.exe application being triggered and opening of documents.

Alarms shall automatically be printed on the BMS terminal printers allocated, or alternatively IT networks printer. Where colour printers are utilized it shall be possible to print alarms in red and alarm clear in black.

It shall be possible to produce an extended text message to accompany the annunciation of any alarm. This shall provide further information about the alarm and any action required to be taken by the user or indicate that automatically programmed in the system. These messages shall contain multiple lines of text and automatically printed on a designated printer local to a BMS terminal. There shall be no practical limit to the length of messages created.

Acknowledgement of alarms shall be automatically printed and will indicate the time, date, and any message generated by the user.

It shall be possible to allocate alarm priorities into single or group acknowledgements allowing high priority alarms to be individually acknowledged by the user or several low priority alarms to be acknowledged in one action. It shall be possible to acknowledge a selection of the new alarms received.

BMS Alarm Banners

Alarms shall be displayed via an alarm banner present across all system screens to provide instant visibility of system wide alarms and access to individual filters. This banner shall be configurable for always displayed or if hidden the banner shall be shown when an alarm event occurs.

The alarm status banner shall provide a display filters each detailing the current active alarm information and alarm Acknowledgement State per filter. It shall be possible by selecting the active alarm total to review that points are in alarm for the specific filter.

The alarm banner shall enable each filter to be customised by configurable alarm filter text and bell colour allowing definition such as Critical Alarms, General Alarms and Low level alarms.

The alarm banner shall show the alarm status per each filter with the total number of points currently in alarm as received at the BMS terminal, and acknowledgement state e.g. grey – no alarms, flashing grey / color – unacknowledged alarms, color stable – alarm condition present and acknowledged. It shall be possible by clicking on the totals active alarm button to display a summary of points currently in alarm for that filter.