The Short Path to ISA 18.2 Alarm Management Compliance

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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

April 2013Parameter April ’13

BeforeJune ’14

StaticSept ’14Dynamic

ISA 18.2 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 Month

3438 4852 781

Results from Dynamic Alarm Management

Priorities April ’13Before

June ’14Static

Sept ’14Dynamic

ISA 18.2 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.comcraig.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%)