Alarm management boost

By implementing M.A.C RESTRICTED AREA Solutions' ProcessVue alarm management and printer replacement software at Drax Power Station, engineers can now identify alarm trends more easily and quickly and analyse the causes of plant upsets, should any occur, including the sequence of events (SOEs) leading up to a loss of production.

George Eccleston, lead control and instrumentation engineer, says: "We have 11 SCADA systems across site.

Six of these systems look after the six steam turbine generators, two are associated with water treatment and common site services, and the remaining three are within our materials handling processes.

"All provide plant operators with real time alarm handling capability.

M.A.C Solutions has supported us every step of the way, adapting and tuning ProcessVue to exactly meet our requirements." Eccleston works in the Production Department at Drax. He adds: "ProcessVue has been critical in helping us to quickly identify the sequence of events that lead up to a plant upset or loss of production.

"By adapting it to our requirements, M.A.C Solutions has also helped deskill our alarm management processes so that front-end users can access information quickly and easily." ProcessVue is based on open technologies and uses .net technology from Microsoft. It uses the industry standard SQL database, TCP/ IP system architecture and the latest Ajax 'Zero Footprint' web-based clients.