Early fault information
provides scope for action
Energy Management Suite
Instrumentation, Controls & Electrical
SPPA-M3000 Early Warning
reports deviations promptly and unambiguously, enabling irregularities in power plant
operation to be identified, interpreted
and rectified before faults can reduce plant
availability or increase maintenance costs.
Your Benefits
■ Reduced downtimes
through early detection’
of impending problems
■ Reduced maintenance
costs through detection
of imminent damage,
which then can be avoided through timely lessexpensive maintenance
■ Optimized operation of
power plant fleet through
permanent monitoring
of performance (e. g.
thermodynamics)
■ Counteracting gaps in
experience and aging
workforce attrition in
power plants through
centralized diagnostic
expertise
The Task
All availability-related components and systems
of a power plant must be continuously monitored to ensure optimum operation of the
power plant and the entire fleet. The sooner
deviations from the desired condition are detected, the more promptly and reliably failures and
shutdowns can be avoided. However, the data
supplying information about deviations from
normal operation are usually not available precisely where they are needed in order to eliminate faults effectively. Usually the information
about the actual performance and equipment
health status needs to be gathered from a lot
of different systems to monitor the overall
status.
The data must be prepared in an intelligible
manner so that causes of alarms can be located
rapidly, interpreted correctly and then eliminated as quickly as possible. Additionally
maintenance activities need to be arranged,
performed and tracked.
a structured form on a uniform user interface,
the user can immediately tell in which power
plant components performance deviations have
occurred and what the status of the individual
alarms is. Information can be filtered according
to several criteria to provide the responsible
experts with targeted access to the warning
messages. A link to the maintenance management system enables users to create fault notifications related to the alarms and track the
status of these fault notifications and the
related work orders.
This solution thus provides the platform for
a Remote Diagnostic Center (RDC), where a
team of experienced experts analyzes impending problems for a whole fleet. The knowledge
of these experts can be leveraged to improve
the performance throughout the entire fleet
and for each individual power plant.
Unambiguous and clearly structured warning messages in the
alarm list of the SPPA-M3000 Early Warning System: fast and
reliably compressed alarms about deviations.
Our Solution
SPPA-M3000 Early Warning brings together
relevant information from a wide range of
systems in the power plant, visualizes
deviations from the desired condition and
supports users in their evaluation of these
deviations. Because the alarms generated
as a result of this process are displayed in
Answers for energy.
Function overview
To avoid alarm flooding, the monitoring
system has to be tailored to the respective
power plant infrastructure. In order to
identify the most relevant data sources
and provide a sound basis for further
analysis and optimization, the Siemens
engineering team utilizes its experience
and know-how during the installation
process to identify critical and essential
data sources and link these to the system.
SPPA-M3000 Early Warning then utilizes
all relevant data from various systems
in the power plant. The data from these
systems can either be alarms (e. g. from
the SPPA-D3000 Diagnostic Suite) or
analog signals which are monitored
for deviations in Early Warning.
Fast and efficient comparison of user activities and the
process signal development for current and past alarms
allow for learning from past situations and for
optimizing activities.
Published by and copyright © 2012:
Siemens AG, Energy Sector
Freyeslebenstrasse 1
91058 Erlangen, Germany
For more information contact
sppa-m3000.energy@siemens.com
www.siemens.com/energy/sppa-m3000
Siemens Energy, Inc.
Instrumentation, Controls, & Electrical
1345 Ridgeland Parkway, Suite 116
Alpharetta, GA 30004, USA
The distinctive feature of Early Warning
is its scope: While underlying diagnostic
systems put an emphasis on the detection
of deviations for certain components and
systems of a single unit, Early Warning
gathers data from the entire fleet and
simultaneously supports case handling
by diagnostic experts, including the
triggering and tracing of follow-up
maintenance activities.
All alarms are automatically transferred to
the relevant experts without delay, where
the information is visualized in a clear and
structured manner. Alarms can be classified and tracked based on a workflow
concept (e.g. evaluated alarms, valid
alarms) to support the expert in his
From Early Warning, necessary maintenance
measures can be triggered in the maintenance
system (e. g. SAP PM).
M3EW_FS_EarlyWarning_e_V2-0
Order No. E50001-G230-A182-X-4A00
Printed in Germany
Dispo 05401, c4bs-Nr. 7465
Printed on elementary chlorine-free
bleached paper.
evaluation of plant conditions.
If necessary, maintenance processes can
be initiated and tracked completely within
Early Warning. All changes of the alarm
and operator activities on a certain alarm
are stored in the history. To support root
cause analysis Early Warning allows for
monitoring actual trends of alarm-causing
signals to be compared with signals of
older alarms.
Together, data quality and timely alarm
annunciation create a time buffer which
can be used to identify, interpret and
rectify irregularities in power plant
operation as quickly as possible.
The ongoing progress of the alarms and work orders can be
tracked from Early Warning, according to the type of problem
and without a long search in the maintenance system.
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Trademarks mentioned in this document are
the property of Siemens AG, its affiliates, or
their respective owners.
Subject to change without prior notice.
The information in this document contains
general descriptions of the technical options
available, which may not apply in all cases.
The required technical options should
therefore be specified in the contract.