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Entries tagged with: IEC 62682

Alarm Management and the Great American Solar Eclipse

Alarm Management and the Great American Solar Eclipse

Throughout history, total solar eclipses have been a significant event. In primitive societies, eclipses were viewed with fear or as important omens. In the US, the upcoming “Great American Solar Eclipse” is creating much excitement. From buying “official” eclipse-viewing glasses, to paying $1500 or more…

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Alarm Management Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Alarm Management Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The March / April 2020 issue of Intech contains an excellent article by Nick Sands and Donald Dunn, the co-chairs for the ISA-18 committee. 

The article reviews some of the most frequently asked questions on alarm management:

  1. What is alarm management?
  2. Which alarm management standard do…

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Alarm Management Goes Global with the Release of IEC 62682!

Alarm Management Goes Global with the Release of IEC 62682!

Alarm Response Procedures: More than Just a Good Idea

Alarm Response Procedures: More than Just a Good Idea

From an operations point of view, one of the significant parts of the ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682 alarm management standards is the endorsement of alarm response procedures. An alarm response procedure, otherwise known as “Alarm Help” or “Alarm Response Manual”, is defined as guidance for response to an alarm (e.g., operator…

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Alarm Shelving - Relieve the Symptoms of Nuisance Alarms and Create a Peaceful Control Room

Alarm Shelving - Relieve the Symptoms of Nuisance Alarms and Create a Peaceful Control Room

In an ideal world, every alarm in a process control system would indicate a malfunction or abnormal condition that required operator action. In the real world, alarms that are irrelevant or annunciate excessively—otherwise known as nuisance alarms—can pop up occasionally to quite frequently. They pose a risk to the…

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Alarm System Auditing and Enforcement – The Why and the How

Alarm System Auditing and Enforcement – The Why and the How

One of the more important tasks in the alarm management lifecycle is auditing of the alarm system configuration. Auditing preserves your investment in rationalization, checks for changes that bypassed the MOC process, and helps you to maintain the integrity of the alarm system. Oh, and it also required per…

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Bad Actor Knockdown: The “Whac-A-Mole” of Alarm Management?

Bad Actor Knockdown: The “Whac-A-Mole” of Alarm Management?

exida Cyber Blog Series 04 - Cybersecurity Metrics, Diagnostics, and Alarms: What’s What?

exida Cyber Blog Series 04 - Cybersecurity Metrics, Diagnostics, and Alarms: What’s What?

Co-written by Todd Stauffer, Director of Alarm Management Services at exida

A wise man once said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Let's apply this to the world of cybersecurity to discuss the importance of cybersecurity metrics and how they are different from a cyber diagnostic and a…

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Four Ways to Pick a Winning Alarm Rationalization Team

Four Ways to Pick a Winning Alarm Rationalization Team

“Who should participate in alarm rationalization?” 

It finally happened. Alarm management problems at the plant led to an incident and now management wants action. You have “volunteered” to put together a staffing plan to execute alarm rationalization. You have heard it can be a resource-intensive process, so you want…

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Rationalize Your Alarm Management Problems Away

Rationalize Your Alarm Management Problems Away

The increasing global adoption of alarm management standards (ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682) is bringing the importance of alarm rationalization to the forefront. Rationalization is defined as the “process to review potential alarms using the principles of the alarm philosophy, to select alarms for design, and to document the rationale…

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When is an Alarm not an Alarm?

When is an Alarm not an Alarm?

The ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682 standards define an alarm as an “audible and/or visible means of indicating to the operator an equipment malfunction, process deviation, or abnormal condition requiring a timely response”.  One of the reasons why alarm systems are out of control (alarm overload, nuisance alarms)…

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Which Measure (Rationalized or Annunciated) is More Important?

Which Measure (Rationalized or Annunciated) is More Important?

Get your priorities (distribution) straight

A very common question is posed during alarm management training.  Does the recommended alarm priority distribution of ~5% / ~15% / ~80% for high / medium / low priority alarms apply to the rationalized alarm priority distribution (as configured in the control system) or to the annunciatedalarm priority distribution…

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Why Data Science Knowledge is Required in Alarm Management

Why Data Science Knowledge is Required in Alarm Management

The alarm system is a daily encounter for most operations across different industries. For oil and gas, the alarm system alerts and reminds the operation to take action(s) to revert the process back to the normal operating range. For pharmaceuticals and batch operations, the alarm system can be used…

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