A method, comprising: obtaining alarm data from sensors (108, 110) in industrial machines (104, 106); storing the alarm data in a database, the database being disposed at a central location; ordering the alarm data as a sequence of individual alarms, determining relationships between the individual alarms, selectively storing the relationships in a mathematical model, wherein the relationships include domination relationships and mutual dependency relationships between the individual alarms, wherein the mathematical model includes discrete alarm events and a sequence of the discrete alarm events; determining a Petri net that corresponds to the mathematical model, the Petri net including the domination relationships and mutual dependency relationships between the individual alarms; analyzing the Petri-net to determine a set of construction rules, the construction rules defining an approach to reduce the number of alarms presented to an operator or a computer program; sensing a plurality of real-time alarms at the industrial machines (104, 106); applying the construction rules to the real-time alarms to obtain a reduced set of real-time alarms; presenting the reduced set of real-time alarms to an operator or to a first computer program; wherein the operator or the computer program causes actions to be performed, the actions being one or more of: activating a selected industrial machine, deactivating a selected industrial machine, sending a message to human for the human to investigate a selected machine, causing a robot to travel to investigate an alarm at a selected industrial machine. obtaining alarm data from sensors (108, 110) in industrial machines (104, 106); storing the alarm data in a database, the database being disposed at a central location; ordering the alarm data as a sequence of individual alarms, determining relationships between the individual alarms, selectively storing the relationships in a mathematical model, wherein the relationships include domination relationships and mutual dependency relationships between the individual alarms, wherein the mathematical model includes discrete alarm events and a sequence of the discrete alarm events; determining a Petri net that corresponds to the mathematical model, the Petri net including the domination relationships and mutual dependency relationships between the individual alarms; analyzing the Petri-net to determine a set of construction rules, the construction rules defining an approach to reduce the number of alarms presented to an operator or a computer program; sensing a plurality of real-time alarms at the industrial machines (104, 106); applying the construction rules to the real-time alarms to obtain a reduced set of real-time alarms; presenting the reduced set of real-time alarms to an operator or to a first computer program; wherein the operator or the computer program causes actions to be performed, the actions being one or more of: activating a selected industrial machine, deactivating a selected industrial machine, sending a message to human for the human to investigate a selected machine, causing a robot to travel to investigate an alarm at a selected industrial machine.