Published on 05/29/2017 | Technology
Honeywell used a combination of advanced regulatory control strategies and model-based advanced controls in this project to mee
The importance of alarm management to preventing process plant incidents is well recognized. Human factors are held responsible for 40% of incidents causing loss or injury in the process industries, according to the Abnormal Situation Management® (ASM) Consortium. Poor performance of alarm systems has the potential to be a significant contributory factor. The average number of alarms received daily by an operator in the oil and gas industry, at 1200, is more than eight times the level recommended by EEMUA (144). In the petrochemicals industry that rises to 10 times the recommended level at 1500 a day – more than one a minute. The implications for safe operations are clear.
It is not just a question of safety however, research from the ASM® Consortium and others clearly show that operating outside defined limits contributes to abnormal situations and equipment failures by as much as 76%, contributing to a $20 billion annualcostofunplanneddowntime.Thoseemployingbestpractice,meanwhile can reduce this unplanned downtime by 50%, accelerate recovery from abnormal situations by 80% and increase process throughput by up to 8%.
Industry leaders are therefore seeking a more effective alarm system to not just prevent incidents but to drive value. They want to move the operator beyond a traditional reactive function in which they engage in constant fire-fighting, to become proactive agents with the time and information to deliver better outcomes for the business.
This does not mean abandoning the metrics and reporting traditionally associated with alarm management. These remain vital. Rather, it means integrating operations management with alarm management to drive increased value. This empowers operators to not just effectively handle alarms, but minimize deviations from operating limits, understand when critical alarms are about to fire, and subsequently predict and in many cases, prevent abnormal situations.
You can read and download the full report here.
