ing documents including the Engineering

Equipment and Materials Users Association (EEMUA) standard 191 Alarm

Systems: A Guide to Design, Management and Procurement. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
is using ISA-18.2 as the basis for international alarm management standard
IEC-62682.
Role of alarms

ISA-18.2 defines an alarm as An

audible and/or visible means of indicating
to the operator an equipment malfunction,
process deviation, or abnormal condition requiring a response. This means an
alarm is more than a message or an event,
as it indicates a condition demanding
quick operator action.
Ideally, each alarm will provide the
operator with related information such
as priority, possible root cause, and a recommend response procedure. The operator can then respond to the alarm quickly
and effectively. Limiting alarms, prioritizing alarms, and providing alarms with
necessary related information can reduce
the chance that an operator will delay
response, or even ignore the alarm.

What is alarm management?

Alarm management is the proper

implementation of documentation, design,
usage, and maintenance procedures to
construct an effective alarm system.
ISA18.2 defines the processes and procedures required to create an effective alarm
management system. Figure 1 shows the
ISA18.2 lifecycle model of alarm management. This model can be applied to a
new or an existing alarm system.
As shown in Figure 2, stage activities
logically follow one another, and correct
completion of all activities will result in
a properly designed and effectively operating alarm management system. The
lifecycle model also includes stages for
ongoing maintenance, essential for sustaining effective operation.
The 10 stages in the lifecycle model
can be roughly categorized into four general tasks. To perform these tasks, its
essential that a process plant create a
cross-functional team that includes all relevant plant functional areas including, but
not limited to, management, engineering,
safety, operations, and maintenance.

Stages and activities

Stage

Title

Philosophy

Identification

Activities
Define process for alarm management and alarm system
requirements specification
Determine potential alarms

Rationalization

Rationalization, classification, prioritization, and doicumentation

Detailed design

Basic alarm design, HMI design, and advanced alarming design

Implementation

Install alarms, intial testing, and initial training

Operation

Operator responds to alarms refresher training

Maintenance

Monitoring and
assessment

Monitoring alarm data and report performance

Management of
change

Process to authorize additions, modifications, and

deletions of alarms

Audit

Maintenance repair and replacement, and periodic testing

Periodic audit of alarm management processes

Figure 2: Activities associated with the stages in the ISA18.2 lifecycle model of alarm
management are shown.

Task 1: Optimizing system design

This task encompasses lifecycle model
stages A through E: philosophy, identification, rationalization, detailed design,
and implementation. When properly executed, this task supports the design of an
alarm system that prevents alarm flooding and other undesirable alarm system
occurrences. It also provides operators
with the information they need to take
proper action when alarms occur.
An important activity within this
task is to specify the causes of current
nuisance alarms and to eliminate these
alarms, or at least greatly reduce their frequency. This is an essential step toward
reducing alarm flooding. In many cases,
alarms can be reclassified as events to be
recorded by the automation system for
later review, instead of as items requiring
immediate operator attention.
Once the total number of alarms has
been reduced as much as possible, the
next step is to prioritize the remaining
alarms. Prioritization can be quite complex, as it requires plant personnel to
identify possible abnormal operating conditions, list the alarms that might occur
for each condition, and then prioritize
these alarms. After alarms are reduced
and prioritized, then recommended operator actions for each alarm can be created.
Performing these and other steps as
listed in the lifecycle model stages A
through E will result in the creation of an
effective alarm system.

Figure 3: This alarm summary window

is an effective tool for displaying alarms
to operators in a manner allowing quick
and comprehensive response.

Task 2: Advanced operator support

This task encompasses lifecycle model
stages F and G: operation and maintenance. A tool in implementing this task is
the creation of alarm summary windows
in the automation system (see Figure 3).
Modern automation systems will include
the functionality to create these windows
in the process and its alarms.
An alarm summary window typically
displays the list of currently active alarms.
With most automation systems, the alarm
summary window will provide sort, filter, shelving, and other functions to help
improve display of information to the
operators. These functions can be used to
prevent higher priority alarms from being
overlooked by operators.
Each alarm will require some type of
response from the operator. Advanced

inside process

alarm summary windows display what

sequence of actions should be performed
by the operator in response to particular
alarms (see Figure 4). An effective method for displaying these actions is a flow
chart, which can be used to guide the
operator through the response sequence.
A flow chart can be very effective
because it can contain if/then instructions,
guiding operators to take different actions
depending on how the process responds
to operator actions and other conditions.

Figure 4: This advanced alarm summary window uses a flow chart to display
what sequence of actions should be performed by the operator in response to a
particular alarm.

Task 3: Performance evaluation

This task models stage H, monitoring and assessment, to evaluate the performance of the existing alarm system.
In ISA18.2, key performance indicators
(KPIs) are suggested as a useful tool to
perform the activities in this stage. An
example KPI would be the number of
alarms within a fixed time of the operation. As shown in Figure 5, ISA 18.2 lists
the very likely to be acceptable and maximum manageable number of alarms for
various time periods.
The alarm system will provide
a host of data to help evaluate
performance including, but not
limited to, alarm frequency, oper-

Practical limits to human capabilities

Very likely to be acceptable

Maximum manageable

~150 alarms per day

~300 alarms per day

~6 alarms per hour (average)

~12 alarms per hour (average)

~1 alarm per 10 minutes (average)

~2 alarms per 10 minutes (average)

Figure 5: This chart lists recommended alarm frequencies for an alarm system in
accordance with ISA 18.2.

ator response time, and specific operation

actions. This data can be used to improve
the alarm system, and to provide more
effective operator training.
It is often useful to evaluate alarm system data from several viewpoints. For
instance, the number of alarms in each
area and the number of hourly alarms
are both important data points, and can
be evaluated separately or together. By
using these kinds of data, the conditions
in which operator errors frequently occur
can be specified, and these results can be
used to improve operator response.
Modern automation systems provide tools for creating reports, and these
reports can be particularly useful for evaluating alarm system performance (see
Figure 6). Modern automation systems
can be configured to collect a host of data
concerning alarm system performance.
This data can be presented to plant personnel in a variety of formats from simple KPIs to charts and graphs. Using this
information, alarm system performance
can be evaluated and improved.
Task 4: Continuous improvement
This task encompasses lifecycle model
stages I and J, management of change and
audit. Continuous alarm system improvement is supported by performing uniform
management of the enormous amount of

Figure 6: These types of reports can be very effective tools for evaluating alarm system performance.

alarm-related data typically contained in

an alarm master database.
For example, alarm system design
parameters can be compared with actual
alarm system performance figures. When
significant discrepancies exist, then corrective action can be recommended. Recommended corrective actions can then be
reviewed and implemented as required
using a comprehensive change management procedure.
Alarm management entry points

For most alarm systems, there are

three typical entry or starting points for
creating an alarm management system.
Referring to the ISA 18.2 lifecycle model,
these points are: a) philosophy, h) monitoring and assessment, or j) audit.
For new process plants, philosophy
is the preferred point of entry. For existing plants, either monitoring and assessment or audit is preferred using recent
plant operating data. Actions are then
taken based on the evaluation. This
course retains effective existing practices while pinpointing areas that require
improvement.
For new plants, the lifecycle model
should be followed in its entirety, starting
with task 1, ensuring that all necessary
steps are taken to implement an effective
alarm management system.
Proper alarm management is indispensable for achieving safe and secure
process plant operation. The approach
to alarm management standardized by
ISA18.2 was introduced and explained
in this article, and then summarized
into four general tasks. Following this
approach will result in an optimal alarm
management system that prevents minor
alarms and upsets from escalating into
serious incidents. ce
Marcus Tennant is principal systems
architect for Yokogawa.

Posted with permission from the September 2013 issue of Control Engineering www.csemag.com. Copyright 2013, CFE Media. All rights reserved.
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