24/7 Emergency Technical Support

Services

Alarm Monitoring Systems (AMS)

An AMS is worth exactly as much as the crew's trust in it. A system showing forty standing alarms in normal operation monitors nothing — it has trained the engineers to acknowledge without reading.

We handle new installations and, far more often, the rehabilitation of existing ones: sensors brought back into service, correct limits and delays, sensible grouping, and an alarm log that can actually be read after an incident.

Scope of work

  • Survey of the existing system and a record of every active and inhibited point
  • Upgrade or replacement of AMS processing units and operator screens
  • Limit, hysteresis and delay setup per point
  • Alarm grouping and prioritisation into critical / warning / status
  • Extension alarm system, duty-engineer call and dead-man alarm
  • Remote indication on the bridge, in the engineer's office and in cabins
  • Time-stamped alarm logging with export for incident analysis
  • Repair of field wiring, junction boxes and sensors that have been bypassed

Typical symptoms & failures

  • Dozens of permanently active or inhibited alarms nobody clears
  • False alarms in specific weather conditions or at a specific load
  • Points still live for machinery removed years ago
  • A siren that never reaches the duty engineer's cabin
  • An alarm log that will not export, or carries the wrong time
  • An AMS screen that freezes and only recovers on restart

What you receive

  • A complete, current alarm point list with limits and delays
  • A list of inhibited points with the reason and a repair proposal
  • Test protocol per point and per group
  • Exported alarm log in a readable format

Equipment & protocols

  • PLC-based AMS platforms and industrial panel PCs
  • Pressure, temperature, level, flow and vibration instrumentation
  • Modbus RTU/TCP and CAN bus to engines and subsystems
  • Work aligned with class requirements for UMS/E0 notation where applicable

Frequently asked questions

The vessel holds UMS notation. Does an AMS upgrade affect it?

It does, which is why the job is planned together with the technical department so class requirements are met and the right documentation is available for survey.

Can false alarms be reduced without losing monitoring?

In most cases yes. False alarms almost always come from a wrong limit, a missing delay or a failed sensor — not from a system that is 'too strict'.

How long does an AMS clean-up take?

Survey and limit correction is typically 2–4 days onboard; sensor replacement depends on spares availability.

Send us the problem

Describe the system, the vessel and what you are seeing. You get back a concrete intervention plan and a defined scope of work.