Improved Alarm Management to Protect Utilities Estates

From equipment failure, safety breaches, or intruder-related damage to deliberate acts of sabotage, a wide range of incidents can potentially disrupt utilities' supply – whether water, gas, or electricity. This is one of the reasons utility providers rely so heavily on alarms to flag something wrong.

Here are four ways to improve your alarm management to keep services running smoothly.

1. Unify your technology

Most sites in your estate will need at least two, usually three, separate types of monitoring:

• process
• emergency (fire, gas, smoke detection)
• and security

However, while a faulty pipe valve or rising temperatures in a process area may pose a very different risk to a perimeter fence breach, this does not mean they must be monitored in isolation. Doing so and requiring more time may mean connected threats are missed. For instance, a process fault detected simultaneously as an intruder on site could indicate a malicious attack.

With an open architecture platform, you can integrate any number of systems, sensors, and devices to ensure individual alarms generated can be monitored, contextualised, and managed in one place.

2. Centralise alarm management

Improve centralised management of your alarms by implementing an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC).

Contrary to what you might think, this does not require a dedicated new facility. With a closed network and web-based remote access solutions, any existing site can be the central alarm monitoring hub for regional operations or your whole estate.

This is especially helpful for quickly responding to alerts from unmanned sites. The ARC can be configured to allow each location to maintain local control when needed. However, no matter where an alarm is triggered or how it is handled, you will always have a record of what happened through the single, unified platform at the heart of your ARC.

3. Use customisation

Another benefit of monitoring disparate systems and alarms via a single platform is that management tools can be applied to ensure alerts are prioritised and managed effectively.

Ensure the platform you choose supports high levels of customisation. For example, assigning different colours, icons and sounds to different alarm types will help users quickly and easily identify which to deal with first. ‘Non-critical’ alarm notifications can effectively be ‘parked’ with reminders set to ensure nothing is forgotten.

You can also customise alarms according to who needs to see them. This handy feature prevents alarm fatigue, ensuring individual operators aren’t overwhelmed.

4. Automate for efficiency

Automating specific responses to alarms will save you precious time. For example, remote access solutions and task management workflows can automatically message maintenance teams with fault descriptions and site coordinates whenever a process or equipment alert is received.

Alarms can also be programmed to trigger:

• virtual security patrols (“walking” a set route using cameras)
• emergency team dispatch
• area and site lockdowns,
• incident escalation protocols (e.g. to a central team in the event of a significant event)
• and other scenarios to ensure rapid response to any threat.