Patent ID: 7692537

Claim:
A method for deciding what alarm, out of a number of alarms generated in an industrial plant or process, to present to a system operator, the method comprising: creating hiding rules, associating each hiding rule with a real-world object, storing the hiding rules in a storage unit, creating at least one hiding mask corresponding to an operational mode of the industrial plant or process, associating at least one hiding rule with the at least one hiding mask, wherein hiding rules associated with the at least one hiding mask are selectively active, storing the at least one hiding mask in a storage unit, receiving an alarm related to a real-world object, determining if a hiding rule is associated with said real world object, determining if the at least one mask is active and if so if any hiding rules associated with the active mask are active, deciding from the hiding rules whether to present or hide the alarm by determining if the alarm falls within active hiding rules, selectively and actively hiding alarms that are decided to be hidden and not presenting the alarm to the system operator, presenting alarms that are not hidden, and setting a data item coupled to each hidden alarm to mark that the alarm has been hidden.