The Short Path to ISA 18.
2 Alarm
Management Compliance
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Thank you!
Presenters
James Henry
Craig Wagoner
Introduction
Define an Alarm Flood
What causes Floods?
Impact of Alarm Floods on your plant
New process for alarm rationalization that reduces
time commitment of plant personnel
Dynamic Alarm Management and its ability to control
alarm floods – example of nested logic tree
Results before and after Dynamic Alarm Management
Definition of Alarm Flood
Alarm Flood defined by ISA 18.2 as -
“10 or more annunciated alarms in any 10 minute
period per operator”
What causes an Alarm Flood?
Configuring an alarm is cheaper than deciding
if it is needed or not…
Lack of Clear Alarm Philosophy
Alarms are typically configured for normal
running conditions, therefore many alarms
are triggered upon a change of process state:
• Plant State 1 to Plant State 2
• Run to Shutdown
Impact of Alarm Floods?
ISA recommendations have become RAGEGEP
– Plant Management expect scrutiny of alarm performance
during OSHA audits.
Reports show that 70% of plant incidents occur on
startup, shutdown or transitions.
Could incidents be caused by critical alarms being
hidden within a flood?
– We know this to be true
Are incidents caused by operators starting up the
plant without alarms?
– Both literally and figuratively true
Impact of Alarm Floods?
Product quality, plant profitability and equipment
damage – have any of these suffered when alarm
floods were a significant distraction for the
operator?
Has an incident review identified that a critical
alarm was missed? Was a flood of alarms even
considered as a distraction for the operator?
How many loss of containment incidents, injuries,
or worse can be tracked back to alarm floods?
Alarm Rationalization
Alarm rationalization facts:
– Alarms must:
• Be clear and relevant to the operator
• Indicate an abnormal process condition that has consequences of inaction and a defined response
• Be unexpected
• Be unique
– Quality rationalization requires quality people (facilitator)
• Experienced process engineer
• Alarm management experience
• Capable of challenging participants to keep process on track and in agreement with alarm philosophy
– Requires significant time and economic commitment, which is often not
available.
Alarm rationalization myths:
– The goal of rationalization is to get rid of alarms
– Configured alarm priority distribution doesn’t matter
Optional Rationalization Process
Save time by minimizing or eliminating design-by-
committee rationalization
Develops a fully rationalized system using plant
data, operating procedures, MOC reports, and
consequence of deviation analysis
Process is submitted to the rationalization team in
advance for review and comments.
Rationalization team records comments and
identifies exceptions necessary for final review
Optional Rationalization Process
Final review is focused on about 15% of the total
tag count with exceptions. The balance of alarms
are accepted as designed
Quality is improved because of focus on
exceptions
Time savings over standard rationalization is
approximately 60%.
Dynamic Alarm Management
Improved Quality of Alarms
– Alarm relevancy by state
– Responsive configuration
Correct Technology, Methodology and Resources
– Plant is divided into systems and sub-systems
– Complete and thorough review of process documents
– Interviews with engineers and operators
Dynamic Alarm Management
Dynamic rationalization is rationalization for more
than one process state
Static rationalizations can become dynamic when
the question “When” is added to the discussion
for each point
Control of alarm floods is vastly more important
than improving average alarm rates
Dynamic Alarm Management
Dynamic Alarm Management is the only way to
control alarm floods
Dynamic Alarm Management
– Transition manager configurable for every alarm
– Smooth transitions from state to state
– True Dynamic Alarm Management software able to handle 700+
dynamic points per operator
– Enables meeting or exceeding ISA 18.2 metrics
Online Solution
Simplified Nested Logic 1
Simplified Nested Logic 2
Results from Dynamic Alarm Management
Parameter April ’13 June ’14 Sept ’14 ISA 18.2
April 2013 Before Static Dynamic Target
Peak Alarm Rate / 10 min 299 190 53 10
Average Alarm Rate / 10 min 4.8 3.9 1.0 1
% of Time in Flood Condition 9% 15.6% 3.0% <1%
Total Flood Count per Month 218 387 46
Total Chattering Alarm per 3438 4852 781
Month
Results from Dynamic Alarm Management
Priorities April ’13 June ’14 Sept ’14 ISA 18.2
Before Static Dynamic Target
Urgent 49.4% 15% 4% 5%
High 50.6% 18% 18% 15%
Low <0.1% 67% 78% 80%
Total Flood Counts per Month
Total Chattering Alarms - late June to mid-Sept.
Annunciated Alarms per 10 min by Month
Annunciated Alarms per 10 min by Month
Percent Time of Day in Flood by Month
Summary
Dynamic Alarm Management has had a massive impact on
plant’s ability to control alarm floods.
Culture of operating by alarm is changing.
Optional rationalization process saved 416 man hours of
plant personnel time with excellent rationalization results.
ISA 18.2 Target Metrics are not yet fully reached but well on
the way – Dynamics implemented about 1 month ago and
some system tuning is needed
Plant personnel impressed by the ability to dynamically
suppress alarms.
Where To Get More Information
Questions?
For More Information Contact:
steve.ferrer@prosys.com
craig.wagoner@cornerstonechemco.com
Thank You for Attending!
Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Metric Comparison
Before - 14721 Alarms (8757 Enabled)
– Critical : 3371 (38.5%)
– Warning : 1884 (21.5%)
– PVBAD : 1022 (11.7%)
– Prompt : 24 (0.3%)
– SIM : 2456 (29.1%)
After - 14721 Alarms (1807 Enabled)
– Critical : 109 (6.0%)
– High : 354 (19.6%)
– Low : 1344 (74.4%)
