In this paper, a new concept for fault prevention in present and future industrial automation systems is presented. The aim of fault prevention is the identification of fault development processes while a system is still faultless. | Journal of Automation and Control Engineering Vol. 4, No. 4, August 2016 Abnormality Management in Industrial Automation Systems M. Bordasch, N. Jazdi, and P. Göhner Institute of Industrial Automation and Software Engineering, Stuttgart, Germany Email: {, , }@ Abstract—In this paper, a new concept for fault prevention in present and future industrial automation systems is presented. The aim of fault prevention is the identification of fault development processes while a system is still faultless. These processes can be difficult because they are only based on the past and the current system behaviour and the effects may not be visible yet. In order to countervail these problems, an abnormality management approach was developed to identify abnormalities in fault development processes. By means of this information, the same or systems of the same structure can be checked for these abnormalities in the future. Hence, the occurrence of faults can be prevented, the system availability can be increased and the costs can be reduced. Nowadays, the availability of systems are increasingly essential because a high productivity is needed for companies to remain competitive. II. In order to develop a concept for fault prevention in industrial automation systems it is important to understand the way faults develop. A fault development process can be noticed by abnormal system behaviour or rather by an abnormality in the system behaviour. Therefore, it is crucial to distinguish between an abnormality and a fault. In general, an abnormality can be seen as a state, in which the system behaviour deviates from the normal condition [2]. Thereby, it is easy to recognize that the thresholds of abnormalities are quite fuzzy. In contrast, for faults there are several precise definitions, such as that a fault is a condition, which can cause a part or a complete system to fail [3]. Moreover, a fault produces an obvious loss .
