Operator response to alarms is a critical layer of protection to prevent a plant upset from escalating to an incident. Poor alarm management has been cited as a contributor to numerous industry incidents. Application of alarm management best practices can help increase operator productivity leading to optimized production and less unplanned downtime. The course will show how the ISA-18.2-2009 standard “Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries," and the alarm management lifecycle defined in it, can be used to address common alarm management issues (e.g., nuisance alarms, alarm floods) and to create an effective, sustainable alarm management program that delivers quantifiable benefits.
The seminar prepares participants to support a facility alarm management program including tasks such as creating an alarm philosophy document, alarm rationalization, analyzing alarm system performance, alarm system maintenance, and resolution of alarm management issues.
It also focuses on the relationship between effective alarm management and process safety.
What you Will Learn by Attending:
- What goes into creating an effective alarm philosophy document
- Establishing objective criteria for determining which alarms are valid and which are not
- How to rationalize alarms to ensure every alarm is meaningful to the operator, prioritized consistently, and documented thoroughly (cause, consequence, corrective action, time to respond)
- Establish alarm setpoints based on design constraints, operating boundaries, and safe upper and lower operating limits
- Similarities and differences between alarm rationalization and process hazard analysis (PHA)
- How to treat system / instrument diagnostic alarms and alerts
- Effective design and implementation of safety (related) alarms
- Techniques for improving the operator’s response through improved HMI design, the use of alarm shelving (manual suppression), and alarm response procedures
- How to suppress alarms from the operator to prevent an alarm flood (e.g., when a compressor trips)
- How to measure alarm system performance to create a continuous improvement program
- How to identify and resolve common alarm management issues (e.g., stale alarms, chattering alarms, and alarm floods)
- Estimating the financial benefits of alarm management
- Integrating alarm management into a Process Safety Management (PSM) program
Who Should Attend:
- Process engineers
- Operators and their supervisors
- Control system engineers
- Safety, risk management, and environmental personnel
- Maintenance technicians & engineers
Course Length: 1 day
