Identification of Hidden Failures in Process Control Systems Based on the HMG Method

This paper presents a function-oriented system analysis method that gains knowledge about properties of technical systems, including system capabilities that can appear as sources of incipient failures. Such failures have a significant role in connection with process control systems, since they can cause the systems to become overloaded and even unstable, if they remain hidden. The method uses a particular terminology to contribute to the identification of system properties, including goals, functions, and the capabilities. All identified knowledge about the system is then represented by using a tailored combination of two function-oriented methods, Multilevel Flow Modelling (MFM) and Goal Tree-Success Tree (GTST). The features of the method, called Hybrid MFM-GTST, are described and demonstrated by using an example of a process control system. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.