“…there is a belief amongst many engineers and managers that human error is both inevitable and unpredictable.
However, human error is inevitable only if people are placed in situations that emphasize human weaknesses and that do not support human strengths”
Martin Anderson, IChemE Safety and Loss Prevention…
Typically a person’s salary reflects the value of their skillset and the importance of their role to their company. If that’s TRUE, then there is some good news for safety practitioners. A recent salary survey conducted by ISA and published in InTech magazine benchmarked the average salary…
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…
The purpose of an alarm is pretty straightforward - to draw the operator’s attention to an abnormal situation that requires action in order to prevent an undesired consequence. Alarms that don’t meet this principle often become nuisance alarms. A nuisance alarm is defined as:
“an alarm that annunciates excessively,…
The ISA-18.2 and IEC 62682 alarm management standards provide recommended targets for average alarm rate and for alarm floods - a condition during which the alarm rate is greater than the operator can effectively manage (e.g., more than 10 alarm per 10 mins)…
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…
On July 27, the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued a Factual Update on their investigation into a release of water containing a toxic gas (hydrogen sulfide) and subsequent fatal injuries sustained at the Aghorn Operating Waterflood Station. While it is typically not a good idea to comment on investigations…
Significant progress in process safety has been made by many companies and engineers around the globe. This progress is often overshadowed when a process safety accident hits the news. In December of 2007, a runaway reaction led to an explosion at the T2 Laboratories in Jacksonville, FL.…
Most everyone has heard of the “80-20 rule”. It asserts that for many situations, roughly 80% of the effects (outcomes) come from 20% of the causes (inputs). This rule was first proposed in the early 1900s by Vilfredo Pareto, who was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, philosopher,…
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)…
We are going to continue discussing the results from exida’s recently published industry benchmark survey on the practices for the use of alarms as safeguards and IPLs. Over 200 safety practitioners from around the world provided responses. This entry will discuss the relationship between alarms identified as safeguards and…
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…