ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Cosylab, Ljubljana
Controls groups at large accelerators are routinely called upon to build and support controls for virtually all machine systems. While construction projects within the US DOE system are normally carefully planned and tracked by project management professionals, this support ends when construction milestones are met. However, once construction is complete, work continues as the group performs ongoing support and maintenance while also implementing requested system improvements and upgrades. With customers from virtually every accelerator and experiment group, the demands on the group often exceed the capacity of available resources. This type of diverse workload needs to be well organized and managed in order set proper priorities and ensure efficient use of resources. At SNS, we have collaborated with Cosylab to develop Controls Request Tracker (CRT), which is adapted from the Cosylab Project Manager (CPM) software. The resulting system not only provides standard request tracking features, but is interfaced to the SNS Logbook and work control system. This paper will discuss CRT and how we use it to manage the work of our controls group.
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Learning from our experience with the standard EPICS alarm handler (ALH) as well as a similar intermediate approach based on script-generated operator screens, we developed the Best Ever Alarm System Toolkit (BEAST). It is based on Java and Eclipse on the Control System Studio (CSS) platform, using a relational database (RDB) to store the configuration and log actions. It employs a Java Message Service (JMS) for communication between the modular pieces of the toolkit, which include an Alarm Server to maintain the current alarm state, an arbitrary number of Alarm Client user interfaces (GUI), and tools to annunciate alarms or log alarm related actions. Web reports allow us to monitor the alarm system performance and spot deficiencies in the alarm configuration. The Alarm Client GUI not only gives the end users various ways to view alarms in tree and table, but also makes it easy to access the guidance information, the related operator displays and other CSS tools. It also allows online configuration to be simply modified from the GUI. Coupled with a good "alarm philosophy" on how to provide useful alarms, we can finally improve the configuration to achieve an effective alarm system.
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
ORNL RAD, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) Project is continuing on its path towards high reliability. To help ensure that this happens, the SNS Controls Group has developed many new applications for use with Control System Studio (CSS). These applications are different in functionality and somewhat in implementation. The ELog integration, PACE, Alarm System GUI, and Data Browser updates are some of the applications that are generic in nature and designed to be implemented regardless of the institution. The PV Utility, Fields Viewer, and Rack Viewer were designed specifically for use at SNS but allow for additions and use elsewhere. The use of CSS provides a common interface to the users. CSS also provides developers with the ability to build their applications and use the various CSS-data types. End users benefit because the use of the CSS-data types provides a connection between the different applications at run-time. This paper describes the recent applications that have been developed at SNS and discusses plans for the future.
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
An effective alarm system consists of a mechanism to monitor control points and generate alarm notifications, tools for operators to view, hear, acknowledge and handle alarms and a good configuration. Despite the availability of numerous fully featured tools, accelerator alarm systems continue to be disappointing to operations, frequently to the point of alarms being permanently silenced or totally ignored. This is often due to configurations that produce an excessive number of alarms or fail to communicate the required operator response. Most accelerator controls systems do a good job of monitoring specified points and generating notifications when parameters exceed predefined limits. In some cases, improved tools can help, but more often, poor configuration is the root cause of ineffective alarm systems. A SNS, we have invested considerable effort in generating appropriate configurations using a rigorous set of rules based on best practices in the industrial process controls community. This paper will discuss our alarm configuration philosophy and operator response to our new system.
ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
A new alarm system toolkit has been implemented at SNS. The toolkit handles the Central Control Room (CCR) 'annunciator', or audio alarms. For the new alarm system to be effective, the alarms must be meaningful and properly configured. Along with the implementation of the new alarm toolkit, a thorough documentation and rationalization of the alarm configuration is taking place. Requirements and maintenance of a robust alarm configuration have been gathered from system and operations experts. In this paper we present our practical experience with the vacuum system alarm handling configuration of the alarm toolkit.