How to Reduce Alarm Fatigue with SeQent Alarm Rationalization

Alarm fatigue occurs when operators receive so many alerts that they become desensitized, missing critical events. ISA-18.2 treats about 6 alarms per operator per hour as very likely acceptable and 12 as the most an operator can manage. Beyond this, response times degrade, alarms are ignored, and incidents escalate unnecessarily.

What Causes Alarm Fatigue

Too Many Low-Priority Alarms. Systems that route all alarms to the same group create white noise. Operators receive 50 notifications per shift, most of which are non-critical maintenance reminders. By the time a critical alarm arrives, it is buried.

Chattering Alarms. A tag oscillates around a setpoint, triggering dozens of alarms in seconds. A temperature sensor drifts 0.5 degrees above alarm limit, triggers, then falls below, triggers again, repeating 10 times per minute.

Poorly Tuned Setpoints. Alarms set too close to nominal operating values. A pressure range is 80-100 PSI normally, but alarms trigger at 90 PSI. Equipment spends half its runtime in alarm state.

SeQent Features for Rationalization

Priority Filtering. In FPAM, this maps to two features: Escalation Schemes (different priorities use different schemes with different recipients) and Destination Exceptions (per-alarm overrides on who gets notified). Assign priority levels (critical, high, medium, low). Route critical and high-priority alarms to the primary on-shift group; route medium and low to secondary groups or queues for batch review.

Suppression and Shelving. FPAM does not have a per-alarm “shelve” button; the equivalent is Wildcard Exceptions, which pattern-match alarms and override their behavior (route to nothing, delay, etc.). For example, a Wildcard like TANK2_* can suppress all TANK2 alarms during scheduled maintenance. Use time-based Wildcard Exceptions to silence low-priority alerts outside business hours.

Alarm Throttling (not Deadband). Deadband is a SCADA-side concept (Kepware, RSLogix, FactoryTalk); FPAM does not have a deadband field. The SeQent equivalent is Alarm Throttling at the Agent level: set count plus time window so the agent auto-disables rules that fire too fast (for example, more than 10 times in 60 seconds). Optionally enable “Page the Administrator when the event is disabled.”. SCADA-layer deadband is still useful as a complementary fix.

State-Based Alarming and Initial Delay. Use Initial Delay on the Escalation Scheme to prevent notification fires for short-lived transient conditions. For true state-based gating (only alarm in certain operating modes), gate the alarm at the SCADA layer; FPAM cannot read SCADA mode state. Alarming on transitions rather than continuous conditions reduces repeated firings of sustained conditions.

Step-by-Step Rationalization Process

Step 1: Audit Alarm Volume. Over one week of normal operation, capture all alarms triggered. Count alarms per operator per hour, per device, and per priority. Identify the top 5 devices or tags responsible for 50%+ of alarms.

Step 2: Classify by Business Impact. For each high-volume alarm source, ask: “Does an operator need to act on this in the next 5 minutes?” If no, it is low priority. If yes, it is critical or high.

Step 3: Configure Filtering and Suppression. In SeQent, create escalation rules that route critical/high alarms to on-shift groups and low-priority to secondary queues. For the top 5 chattering tags, add deadband at the SCADA layer or use Alarm Throttling in FPAM.

Step 4: Deploy and Monitor. Roll out over 2-4 weeks, starting with top devices. Measure alarms per operator per hour weekly.

Step 5: Measure Success. Track alarms per operator per hour (target: 6 or fewer), operator response rate (target: above 95% acknowledged within 2 minutes), and escalation rate (target: under 5%).

Manufacturing sites that rationalize alarms see 40-60% reduction in alert volume, 30-50% improvement in response times, and measurable safety improvements.