How to succeed at alarm management

An Alarm Management Program for the 21st Century
This approach is similar to the Six Sigma program: first the problem and objective are defined, then the current state is measured and analyzed, action is taken to improve the situation, and finally the situation is monitored automatically to control, or sustain improvement.

The objective of this approach is to produce a self-sustaining alarm management competency within the organization, and to bring the initial benefits of alarm management as quickly and effectively as possible.

1. Create an alarm philosophy. Define the purpose of each type of alarm or message that is issued by an automated system. Specify the criteria for each priority, for hardware alarms and for when an alarm is needed at all. Best practices in this area include Integrated Risk measures, addressing human factors, and cognitive limitations of human operators. Define other alarm management policies, such as the business rules governing alarm changes, the inhibiting or suppressing of alarms, expectations of operators, and so on. This step produces a document that clearly defines the objectives of the alarm system and the ground rules for its implementation.
2. Benchmark alarm performance. Assess the actual current state. This provides useful data for the following analyses, and also provides a benchmark of the original state of the organization. Alarm configurations and history are collected from the DCS and analyzed with ProcessGuard.
3. Decide which areas require rationalization. Alarm Rationalization, or Alarm Objectives Analysis, is a procedure where each alarm is examined to ensure it conforms to the alarm philosophy. During this process, many alarms are eliminated, others have their priorities changed, and still others have their trip points altered. The process can be time-consuming, and so it is best to start in those parts of the plant that have the worst problems with alarms.
4. Implement Alarm Configuration System. After choosing a starting point, implement a database to collect, retain, control, and present the information collected during the Alarm Objectives Analysis process. This database will form both the change management system and the online operator assistance.
5. Commit Resources. This team will need to work together for several weeks, so free them of most of their other responsibilities for the duration of the analysis. Form a team consisting of:
   - A facilitator, familiar with the AOA process and with alarm analysis
   - At least one area operator, preferably two
   - The area process engineer
   - The area production supervisor
   - An area instrumentation technician
6. Conduct AOA Meetings. Use analysis reports as evidence of problems or situations.
   Review the configured alarms and answer several questions regarding actual alarm
   occurrence and the purpose for the alarm. For example:
   -  Possible causes for the alarm, whether legitimate (providing information), spurious (misleading or nuisance) or redundant (telling the operator something he already knows)
   - The procedure to identify the cause and thus validate the alarm
   - The procedure to mitigate the different causes
   - The time frame the operator has to respond in, before some undesirable consequence occurs
   - The follow-up action required to verify that the procedure was effective
   - The historical frequency at which the alarm occurred, and how many occurrences were spurious or redundant
   - The final alarm trip point and priority
7. During the AOA process, consider alarms that do not exist, but should in addition to considering existing alarms.
8. Re-configure DCS. Implement the changes from an AOA carefully, not made piecemeal. An AOA results in an alarm system that is designed to alert, inform, and guide the operator. The set of alarm configurations work together to define the boundaries of normal operation--if AOA configurations are made piecemeal, some alarms may be removed before alarms intended to replace them have been configured. In that case, the plant will be less safe. It is also important to introduce continuous monitoring applications identified during the AOA. Continuous monitoring applications, such as multivariate trends, provide the operator with improved visibility into the process, without having to rely on alarms as the operator’s "eyes and ears." Much of the barrage of alarms during upsets is a result of the misuse of alarms to alert the operator that an expected event has occurred. Continuous monitoring restores the alarms to their original function of identifying unexpected events that require a response.
9. Human factors. Ensure the human factors are addressed, such as the design of the operator interface in the DCS to the number of independent systems that emit alarms, the audible alarm itself and when (and whether) it can be silenced.
10. Continue to measure and sustain alarm system effectiveness. ProcessGuard can monitor the actual alarm occurrences, fine-tune the alarm settings, and identify errors made in the AOA. The plant personnel who participated in the original AOA will be able to maintain it as changes are made to the plant.