Modern control systems make it easy (maybe too easy) to add alarms without significant effort, cost, or consideration for whether they are truly needed. This has led to alarm systems that often hinder, rather than help, operators by subjecting them to nuisance alarms, alarm floods, incorrectly prioritized alarms, and general alarm overload. Alarm rationalization, a proven alarm management technique and one of the stages of the ISA-18.2 / IEC 62682 alarm management lifecycle, can help address these issues and create an optimal, effective alarm system.
The presentation will touch on best practices for rationalization as well as the most common pitfalls. It will also demonstrate how effective alarm rationalization can lead to reduced downtime, reduced operational risk (insurance premiums), and reduced cost of operations, while improving operational discipline and operator effectiveness.
Todd Stauffer, PE, is responsible for exida’s alarm management products and services (training, consulting, SILAlarm™ rationalization software). He has been an editor and voting member of the ISA-18.2 standards committee on alarm management since 2005. He was an active participant in the development / publication of the ISA-18.2 standard itself and as an editor / reviewer for ISA’s series of technical reports on alarm management (including ISA-18.2 TR1 “Alarm Philosophy” and TR3 “Basic Alarm Design” for which he served as co-chair). He is currently the co-chair of the joint working group developing ISA-84.91.03 “Functional Safety of Safety Controls, Alarms, and Interlocks for the Process Sector”. Todd is an instructor for ISA’s official training class on alarm management and is exida’s representative on the EEMUA 191 committee.
He has executed numerous alarm philosophy workshops, gap assessments, and alarm management training classes for different control system platforms. Todd developed exida’s alarm philosophy best practices template. He is also the product manager for the SILAlarm rationalization software tool. Todd is an industry thought leader in alarm management. He has published numerous articles and presented many papers at supplier user group and industry conferences. His presentations have garnered three “Best in Conference” nominations and his article “Don’t be Alarmed: Avoid Unplanned downtime from alarm overload“ was selected as Intech magazine’s best article of the year in 2007.