In industrial and manufacturing facilities, alarm systems are essential to maintaining a safe working environment, protecting assets, enhancing operational efficiency, ensuring compliance, and monitoring environmental conditions. Their multifaceted role reflects their importance in industrial operations today. An efficient alarm management system brings many business benefits, including lowering operational costs by reducing safety incidents.
Modern alarm management software can enhance operational intelligence and improve decision making in control rooms.
Neels van der Walt, Senior Business Development Manager at Iritron, presents a closer look at alarm management software that supports effective alarm management and highlights ProcessVue as a comprehensive solution.
Alarm systems at an industrial facility are instrumental in alerting plant operators of process safety issues and preventing incidents, but the systems often become ineffective when alarm overload or alarm fatigue result in inadequate responses.
Plant operators often face an overwhelming number of alarms, especially when multiple alarms are triggered at the same time, often referred to as alarm flooding. This makes it difficult to identify which alarm requires immediate attention and can lead to critical alarms being missed. Paired with poor decision making, this can result in serious safety failures, damaging to plant and people.
Using multiple technologies without a consolidated alarm management system and database further complicates incident tracking and response, exacerbating the challenges associated with alarm management.
Software solutions
Recognising these challenges, the effective management of alarm systems can be achieved by implementing suitable software, such as the ProcessVue Alarm Management Suite. This is a comprehensive solution designed to enhance operational intelligence and improve decision making in control rooms.
The suite comprises three main components. The Sequencer is responsible for the collection of alarm messages and event information from multiple disparate systems and consolidating the information into a single database. Collectors are available for most industrial control systems.
The Analyser provides comprehensive off-the-shelf functionality for alarm analysis, including alarm flood analysis, fleeting and chattering alarm analysis, operator response analysis, stale alarm analysis, time in alarm analysis and KPI summary reports on compliance with the various international alarm standards.
The Guardian integrates a master alarm database and Management of Change functionality into a single application, facilitating alarm rationalisation and documentation in a collaborative environment.
Other features include customisable dashboards, automated reporting, holistic real-time views, incident investigation reports and the notification of critical alarms. When compared to other systems available, van der Walt says the ProcessVue Alarm Management Suite stands head and shoulders above the rest.
The suite is designed to meet the requirements of various industries, including oil and gas, power generation, pharmaceuticals and general manufacturing operations.
Compliance with global standards
By adopting effective alarm management solutions, industrial operators can also ensure safe operations and useful alarm alerts. The ProcessVue Alarm Management Suite is designed to align with internationally recognised standards such as ISA 18.2 and EEMUA 191, which are key to establishing best practice in alarm management.
Since its introduction, the ISA 18.2 standard has transformed alarm management, emphasising the need for a structured approach through the alarm management lifecycle. This includes stages such as alarm philosophy development, rationalisation and performance monitoring. By adhering to this standard, organisations can systematically evaluate their alarm systems, ensuring that alarms are justified, prioritised, and effectively managed throughout their lifecycle. The structured methodology enhances operator response to alarms and reduces the potential for alarm fatigue and overload.
Similarly, EEMUA 191 provides guidelines for alarm systems in industrial environments, focusing on the importance of reducing nuisance alarms and improving overall system performance. Compliance with EEMUA 191 ensures that alarms are meaningful and actionable, contributing to better decision making and operational safety.
Further benefits
Beyond compliance, implementing ProcessVue offers organisations further benefits. By prioritising critical alarms, operators can focus on the alarms that matter most, enhancing overall safety protocols within their facilities.
With a centralised database, operators can review alarm history and analyse alarm patterns over time to identify trends. Understanding these trends enables organisations to address the underlying issues proactively and makes it easier to identify root causes when incidents occur. The comparison of current alarm performance against historical data also enables operators to measure improvements and identify areas needing further improvement.
A structured alarm management system that provides for a clearer focus on critical alarms, enables businesses to achieve better safety outcomes and streamlined processes result in fewer interruptions in production. Efficient alarm management thus translates into lower operational costs and fewer incidents contribute to better safety stewardship in the workplace.
For more information visit: www.iritron.co.za
