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Entries tagged with: Alarm Management

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 Philosophy Development – Going to Great Lengths

Alarm Philosophy Development – Going to Great Lengths

Creating an alarm philosophy document is often the entry point into the ISA-18.2/IEC 62682 alarm management lifecycle. Many tasked with developing one are discouraged by its length and the barriers it creates. When it comes to using the philosophy document, a common concern is that if the…

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Alarm Rationalization by the Numbers

Alarm Rationalization by the Numbers

“How much time does alarm rationalization take?” 

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 plan to execute alarm rationalization. You need to create a defendable estimate of how long rationalization will…

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Alarm Rationalization: Alarm Objective Analysis (AOA)

Todd Stauffer, Director of Alarm Management at exida, takes you through a key part of the Alarm Rationalization process called Alarm Objective Analysis (AOA).

You will learn how to determine what alarms you need (and which one’s you don’t), how to eliminate nuisance alarms, and safely reduce the number…

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Alarm Rationalization: An Art or a Science? – Common Rationalization Mistakes

Alarm Rationalization: An Art or a Science? – Common Rationalization Mistakes

Successful alarm rationalization combines both art and science. From the scientific point of view, rationalization follows a systematic process that applies alarm management principles to determine whether an alarm is justified (needed) and to document its basis (cause, consequence, corrective action, time to respond) and settings (priority, setpoint) in…

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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 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?

Bow Ties Part II: Do Bow Ties have a place in Alarm Management?

Bow Ties Part II: Do Bow Ties have a place in Alarm Management?

As discussed in Part I, bow tie diagrams provide an easy-to-understand visual representation of risk management information (hazards, potential consequences, barriers, degradation factors and controls). In this article we examine the applicability of bow ties to alarm management.

According to the CCPS book “Bow Ties in Risk Management”,…

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Can Nuisance Alarms “Break” the Operator?

Can Nuisance Alarms “Break” the Operator?

Study after study finds that something like 80% of industrial incidents (give or take) are caused by Human Error. Incidents involving human error often include a failure of the operator to respond to an alarm, which is often directly or indirectly caused by nuisance alarms. Poor alarm management has…

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CSB Cites Lack of Alarm Management as Contributing Factors to Blowout in Oklahoma

CSB Cites Lack of Alarm Management as Contributing Factors to Blowout in Oklahoma

Don’t Let Your Safe Operating Limits Leave You S-O-L (Out of Luck)

Don’t Let Your Safe Operating Limits Leave You S-O-L (Out of Luck)

As the name implies, the purpose of Safe Operating Limits (SOL) is to define the limits beyond which a process will not intentionally be operated and at which troubleshooting ceases, replaced by pre-determined actions to bring the process to a safe state. Pretty important information. I am sure this is…

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Evaluating Alarm System Performance in a Multi-Operator Control Room

Evaluating Alarm System Performance in a Multi-Operator Control Room

Situation: There are three operator consoles (positions) in the same control room. There is one general alarm horn that goes off whenever a new alarm comes in from any one of the three consoles. The horn draws the attention of each of the three operators.

Question: How are the…

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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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Help Your Operators Defeat the Situation Awareness Demons!

Help Your Operators Defeat the Situation Awareness Demons!

Contrary to what you might have guessed, the “Defeat of the Situation Awareness Demons” is not a new video game on XBOX or Playstation. It is a set of eight (8) factors which undermine effective Situation Awareness. It can be applied to operators in process plants to characterize human…

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How do You Compare?

Industry Benchmark Survey on Alarms as Safeguards and Independent Protection Layers (IPLs)

exida recently conducted an industry benchmark survey on the practices for the use of alarms as safeguards and IPLs. With over 200 safety practitioners from around the world providing responses, you can use the survey findings to…

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Human Factors in Alarm Management

Human Factors in Alarm Management

Question:

Which one of these layers of protection (operator response to alarm, relief valves, dikes, and safety instrumented systems) is not like the other? 

Answer:

Operator response to alarm (Operator Intervention), because of the “Human” factor.

It is very difficult to calculate the probability…

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If an Alarm Occurs and the Operator doesn’t Ack it, was it really an Alarm?

If an Alarm Occurs and the Operator doesn’t Ack it, was it really an Alarm?

Similar to the thought experiment “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”, we ask - If an alarm is generated, and the operator fails to acknowledge it, was it really an alarm? A prevalence of unacknowledged…

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New Version of ISA-18.2 Alarm Management Standard Is Released (2016)

New Version of ISA-18.2 Alarm Management Standard Is Released (2016)

The new and updated version of the ISA-18.2 standard (ANSI/ISA-18.2-2016, Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries) has now been officially released. This supersedes the original edition (2009). The new version incorporates feedback from 6+ years in the "field" and includes some updates based on the IEC 62682…

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