Patent ID: 8856302

Claim:
An industrial process control system comprising: an alarm server comprising a processor, wherein the alarm server is configured to: receive device information representative of a Foundation Fieldbus field device, wherein the device information comprises information extracted from a foundation fieldbus device definition (DD) file of the field device, receive an alarm, an alert, or both from the field device, via a controller communicatively coupled to the alarm server; provide the extracted device information with the alarm, the alert, or both, based upon the device information from a plurality of control systems of different manufacturers, through a standard interface of an Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) Alarms and Events (OPC AE) protocol, communicating with an OPC AE server; the extracted device information comprises: operational ranges of the field device; icons representative of a present state of the field device; description information about the field device, parameters of the field device, or a combination thereof; or a combination thereof; wherein the extracted device information is used for visualizing, managing, or visualizing and managing the Foundation Fieldbus device, via the control system, regardless of a manufacturer of the control system and a manufacturer of the Foundation Fieldbus field device; query a server for human-readable text corresponding to the alarm or alert data sent by the controller; provide the human-readable text corresponding to the alarm or alert data to the OPC AE server; and the OPC AE server provides the human-readable text corresponding to the alarm or alert data to distributed control systems configured to interface with the OPC AE server.