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Integrating Exception Handling in Machine Development

Allansson, Daniel and Henricson, Johan (2007) In MSc Theses
Department of Automatic Control
Abstract
In modern batch plants, alarm floods overwhelming the operator is a common problem of ever increasing severity. As plant hardware increase in complexity and performance, measures such as downtime and meantime between failures, increase in importance and the need for a well-functioning exception handling routine therefore grows critical. In order to minimize downtime and hence boost production efficiency, it is important that faulty or unexpected behaviour is noted early and diagnosed accurately. If it is, the machine or its operator can deal with it fast and accurately, perhaps even while production continues. If it is not, however, it basically means two bad things, the first being unnecessary production stops and the second a flooded... (More)
In modern batch plants, alarm floods overwhelming the operator is a common problem of ever increasing severity. As plant hardware increase in complexity and performance, measures such as downtime and meantime between failures, increase in importance and the need for a well-functioning exception handling routine therefore grows critical. In order to minimize downtime and hence boost production efficiency, it is important that faulty or unexpected behaviour is noted early and diagnosed accurately. If it is, the machine or its operator can deal with it fast and accurately, perhaps even while production continues. If it is not, however, it basically means two bad things, the first being unnecessary production stops and the second a flooded alarm list. The alarm list is the screen on which all exceptions are listed and which is meant to tell the process operator what is wrong and what he should do about it. If no care is taken about it, the list will be flooded since one key exception will cause several others, leaving the operator with the quite unpleasant task of identifying what went wrong and how he should fix it. This master's thesis, carried out at Tetra Pak in Lund, Sweden, presents a well-structured exception handling method and a way of linking it to a workflow. It uses advantages of reusability, modularisation and linking to almost any structural model such as a Function Means Tree (used in WCE) or a UML-model. The linking has several advantages minimizing the work and improving evolutionary possibilities. Examples are being made for illustrational purposes but no implementational efforts or issues are addressed. A well-defined structure for information flow is also suggested to provide modular thinking that, for example, prepares the possibility to collect data for statistical analysis and such. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Allansson, Daniel and Henricson, Johan
supervisor
organization
year
type
H3 - Professional qualifications (4 Years - )
subject
keywords
Alarm management, Error handling, Alarm handling, Root Cause Analysis, Modularisation, World
publication/series
MSc Theses
report number
TFRT-5786
ISSN
0280-5316
language
English
id
8847699
date added to LUP
2016-03-17 13:13:43
date last changed
2016-03-17 13:13:43
@misc{8847699,
  abstract     = {{In modern batch plants, alarm floods overwhelming the operator is a common problem of ever increasing severity. As plant hardware increase in complexity and performance, measures such as downtime and meantime between failures, increase in importance and the need for a well-functioning exception handling routine therefore grows critical. In order to minimize downtime and hence boost production efficiency, it is important that faulty or unexpected behaviour is noted early and diagnosed accurately. If it is, the machine or its operator can deal with it fast and accurately, perhaps even while production continues. If it is not, however, it basically means two bad things, the first being unnecessary production stops and the second a flooded alarm list. The alarm list is the screen on which all exceptions are listed and which is meant to tell the process operator what is wrong and what he should do about it. If no care is taken about it, the list will be flooded since one key exception will cause several others, leaving the operator with the quite unpleasant task of identifying what went wrong and how he should fix it. This master's thesis, carried out at Tetra Pak in Lund, Sweden, presents a well-structured exception handling method and a way of linking it to a workflow. It uses advantages of reusability, modularisation and linking to almost any structural model such as a Function Means Tree (used in WCE) or a UML-model. The linking has several advantages minimizing the work and improving evolutionary possibilities. Examples are being made for illustrational purposes but no implementational efforts or issues are addressed. A well-defined structure for information flow is also suggested to provide modular thinking that, for example, prepares the possibility to collect data for statistical analysis and such.}},
  author       = {{Allansson, Daniel and Henricson, Johan}},
  issn         = {{0280-5316}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{MSc Theses}},
  title        = {{Integrating Exception Handling in Machine Development}},
  year         = {{2007}},
}