RenewOps / Research / EC-WP-1101

The Board That Deleted Its Own Alarms

Alarm management as an information system — load, priority, latching, and the monitor that stops.

Seven failure modes in a live alarm subsystem, each with the arithmetic that exposes it. From 7,839 rows on the board to 1,175. From 17 unrendered Critical alarms to 32 rendered. From a suppression rate reported as 14.2% to a measured 80.9%. An analysis of what an alarm system is actually doing to the attention of the people who watch it.

Contents

1. What an alarm is supposed to be
2. The board that deleted its own alarms
3. Load, suppression, and the arithmetic of an operator's burden
4. Priority resolution, and who is allowed to decide
5. States are not conditions
6. Key stability, latching, and why acknowledgement can stop meaning anything
7. The monitor that stops
8. Ten questions for your own alarm system
9. What RenewOps does about this

Next in the series: What the Incoming Operator Cannot See

Start of the series: Missing Is Not Zero