Alarm Management 07
Alarm Management 07 : Concepts: In all cases of major equipment failure, startups, and shutdowns, the operator must search alarm annunciation displays and analyze which alarms are significant. This wastes valuable time when the operator needs to make important operating decisions and take swift action. If the resultant flood of alarms becomes too great for the operator to comprehend, then the basic alarm management system has failed as a system that allows the operator to respond quickly and accurately to the alarms that require immediate action. In such cases, the operator has virtually no chance to minimize, let alone prevent, a significant loss. In short, one needs to extend the objectives of alarm management beyond the basic level. It is not sufficient to utilize multiple priority levels because priority itself is often dynamic. Likewise, alarm disabling based on unit association or suppressing audible annunciation based on priority do not provide dynamic, selective alarm annunciation. The solution must be an alarm management system that can dynamically filter the process alarms based on the current plant operation and conditions so that only the currently significant alarms are annunciated. The fundamental purpose of dynamic alarm annunciation is to alert the operator to relevant abnormal operating situations. They include situations that have a necessary or possible operator response to insure: (a) Personnel and Environmental Safety, (b) Equipment Integrity, (c) Product Quality Control. The ultimate objectives are no different than the previous basic alarm annunciation management objectives. Dynamic alarm annunciation management focuses the operator's attention by eliminating extraneous alarms, providing better recognition of critical problems, and insuring swifter, more accurate operator response
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