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Entries tagged with: Todd Stauffer

A look into the control room of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2 reactor!

I came across an interesting blog post the other day…

Talk about operating blind.  A great picture shows the status of the control room in the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Unit 2 reactor…Nothing is working (besides the lights)!

All of the computer monitors are blank. The clock…

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Alarm Rationalization is “Going Green (field)”

With the growing adoption of the ISA-18.2 standard on alarm management, industry leaders are increasingly implementing alarm management best practices (such as alarm rationalization) during the upfront design, before they start up control systems for new, “Greenfield” installation. There are numerous benefits. You think alarm overload and nuisance alarms…

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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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Claiming alarms as an independent protection layer (IPL)

Claiming alarms as an independent protection layer (IPL)

An interesting question arose recently when creating an FSM plan:

Does the ISA-18.2 standard on alarm management address the claiming of the operator’s response to alarms as a layer of protection?

Not specifically, however the ISA-18.2 standard does require that alarms are rationalized, and that alarm system performance…

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Do you have class?

New Working Group (WG7) Formed for Alarm Management

The ISA-18.2 committee on alarm management has launched a new working group (WG7) that is focused on developing a standard, recommended practice, or technical report on the application of alarm management to process plants utilizing multiple packaged equipment systems. The work will be based on and complement the existing…

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Rationalize Your Alarm Management Problems Away

Alarm Overload…Nuisance Alarms…Alarm Floods…Incorrectly Prioritized Alarms…. These alarm management problems are all too common in the modern Distributed Control System (DCS).

Why is this?  In the “olden” days (read panel boards and alarm lightboxes), there was considerable thought put into what alarms were necessary because there was limited real…

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To Be an Alarm…Or Not to Be?