Alarms

Visualisation is used to display machine statuses. An alarm system adds the following functionality to this visualisation concept:

• Machine statuses can be displayed centrally in a control element.

• The display can be filtered and edited (e.g. using priorities and groupings).

• Machine statuses can be acknowledged by the user.

• The occurrence of machine statuses and their acknowledgement can be archived.

Alarm

This extension is made possible by alarms. Alarms are special definitions in the project file.

Alarms serve the following purpose:

• Visualisation and archiving of incidents and their rectification

• Centralised recording of production processes

An alarm consists of a unique name and a parameter set. The unique name guarantees the reproducibility of the origin. The parameter set defines the alarm-specific properties.

Alarm group

The Alarms system module simplifies the assignment of names through group structuring: folders, so-called alarm groups, are supported in the same way as in a file system. Alarm names only need to be unique within a folder. Alarm groups also enable machine component-dependent configuration. Structuring in alarm groups supports developers and users in troubleshooting and facilitates the exchange of visualisation components. Alarm groups also fulfil the function of a collective alarm. All alarms occurring in an alarm group can be displayed and acknowledged together via a collective alarm.

Alarm class

The Alarms system module also contains alarm classes. Alarm classes are templates for alarm parameters. Alarm classes influence the behaviour of alarms in terms of appearance and acknowledgement type. Alarm classes support the developer: instead of always having to configure the same parameter combinations, the reference to a parameter combination can be set using a single alarm parameter ( alarm class parameter).

Alarm type

Alarm types fulfil a similar function: Integrated into an alarm as a template, they determine the behaviour with regard to the triggering variables. Basically, an alarm is triggered by a change in the value of a process variable. Alarm types describe the interpretation of the system:

Simple bit alarm (without reference to an alarm type)

The event variable, the triggering bit and other alarm information (text, acknowledgement type, etc.) are specified in the alarm definition. If the triggering bit is set at runtime, the system triggers the corresponding alarm with the information from the alarm definition.

Numerical alarm type

A set of alarm information is assigned to each numerical value within a numerical alarm type. The event variable is specified in the alarm definition and the reference to the numerical alarm type is established. If the event variable assumes one of the values defined in the alarm type at runtime, an alarm is triggered with the correspondingly assigned information.