Case Study: a major Middle East refinery company reduces nuisance alarms with Hexagon’s PAS PlantState Integrity

State-based alarming solves problems for coker unit

The major Middle East refinery company faced a challenge with its new coker unit, which was generating a high rate of irrelevant and non-actionable alarms during its normal cyclic operation. This situation eroded operator trust and created a high potential for missing critical abnormal events, which was unacceptable to the refinery owners. They engaged Hexagon to implement a solution using the PAS PlantState Integrity™ Dynamic Alarming module.

Hexagon’s solution implemented state-based alarming, where equipment operating states were automatically detected and the correct alarm parameters were applied for each state. This approach, along with the creation of common trouble alarms, substantially reduced alarm rates. The results reinforced operator trust in the system, as all coker unit alarms now reliably indicate abnormal conditions requiring specific intervention.