Computer system and method for detecting regularly occurring alarms in automation and industrial control systems

A computer-implemented method for determining one or more clusters of regularly occurring time periods for alarm events, for alarm data in a computer database managed by an automated and industrial control (AIC) system, wherein each regularly occurring time period is defined by a same number of time spaced intervals, comprising:

• capturing, in a computer processor, from the computer database, alarm data for each of a plurality of regularly occurring time periods contained in a defined time period, wherein the captured alarm data includes alarm change of state events and an associated time stamp for each of the alarm change of state events;
• analyzing, in the computer processor, the captured alarm data to detect alarm events contained in each time spaced interval, for each regularly occurring time period;
• computing, by the computer processor, a vector of alarm state values for each regularly occurring time period such that an alarm state value is associated with a time spaced interval, dependent upon:
• 1) a detected alarm event when there is at least one detected alarm event in the associated time spaced interval;
• or 2) with at least one other alarm state value in a previous time spaced interval when there is no detected alarm event in the associated time spaced interval;
• determining, by the computer processor, a distance metric between each pair of respective regularly occurring time periods based on the computed vectors of alarm state values in each respective pair of regularly occurring time periods;
• determining, by the computer processor, one or more clusters of regularly occurring time periods of alarm events in the defined time period, based upon analysis of the determined distance metric between each pair of respective regularly occurring time periods;
• and
• providing, by the computer processor, a tangible output identifying the determined one or more clusters of regularly occurring time periods of alarm events in the defined time period.