Alarm Management for Process Control, Second Edition

Book excerpt: This book elevates alarm management from a fragmented collection of procedures, metrics, experiences, and trial-and-error, to the level of a technology discipline. It provides a complete treatment of best practices in alarm management. The technology and approaches found here provide the opportunity to completely understand the what, the why, and the how of successful alarm systems. No modern industrial enterprise, particularly in such areas as chemical processing, can operate without a secure and reliable infrastructure of alarms and controls—they are an integral part of all production management and control systems. Improving alarm management is an effective way to provide operators with high-value support and guidance to successfully manage industrial plant operations. Readers will find: Recommendations and guidelines are developed from fundamental concepts to provide powerful technical tools and workable approaches; Alarms are treated as indicators of abnormal situations, not simply sensor readings that might be out of position; Alarm improvement is intimately linked to infrastructure management, including the vital role of plant maintenance to alarm management, the need to manage operators’ charter to continue to operate during abnormal situations vs. cease operation, and the importance of situation awareness without undue reliance upon alarms. The ability to appreciate technical issues is important, but this book requires no previous specific technical, educational, or experiential background. The style and content are very accessible to a broad industrial audience from board operator to plant manager. All critical tasks are explained with workflow processes, examples, and insight into what it all means. Alternatives are offered everywhere to enable users to tailor-make solutions to their particular sites.