Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
Overview
The complex nature of manufacturing coupled with the large investments in assets by operating companies in the process industries make the need for automated process control greater than ever. A key function of process control 
systems is to advise the operating personnel as to when a process variable or calculation is at or beyond a limit. A crisis emerged when the ability to easily configure alarms in the modern control systems reduced the cost of adding a new alarm to a system to zero. The dramatic proliferation of alarms that followed made it almost impossible for operators to see critical alarm data. In too many instances, this resulted in incidents and unplanned downtime.
Companies need proper alarm management to ensure that operators are not overwhelmed with nuisance alarms or ones that obscure important events that require the operator’s immediate attention. Alarm management provides another lever for organizations to mitigate their exposure to abnormal situations that could lead to environmental impacts, adversely affect personnel safety, or lead to lost production, rework, and waste. With corporate boards shifting focus to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, a proper alarm management program should be leveraged to elevate the company’s score.
The demand for transparency on sustainable and socially responsible practices is increasing rapidly. Companies are accountable to their various stakeholders like investors, customers, employees, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that want to evaluate a company’s impact on the world. It is believed that Environmental, Social and, Governance (ESG) analysis and reporting can provide valuable insights and help create long-term value for stakeholders. As such, it can significantly impact the financial metrics of a company and better-informed investment decisions.
The Importance of a Sound Alarm Management Strategy
Industrial processes, along with automation systems, continually grow in complexity and are more challenging for the workforce to control and operate. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that current automation systems have eliminated the cost of adding more alarms. This has resulted in alarm proliferation that overwhelms the operators with too much information. As alarm systems become less effective, they diminish the effectiveness of both operators and automation systems.
According to decades of research across the industry, lack of an effective alarm management strategy adversely affects plant performance, profitability, and safety. In the regulated industries, a deviation alarm can mean the loss of a batch of product. In the continuous process industries, an emergency alarm that escalates into an incident can result in a shutdown. Unscheduled downtimes cost between 2 to 5 percent of annual production.
The Abnormal Situation Management Consortium (ASM) estimates that abnormal situation costs the US petrochemical industry losses of $10 to $25 billion per year. ASM points out that most incidents occur from multiple modes of failure. Preventable human error is the largest contributing factor to these losses. Preventing abnormal situations requires a multilayered, multidisciplined approach. It is clear that not all human errors that cause abnormal situations are attributable to operators. Nonetheless, operators do form an important part of the layered solution framework by controlling and monitoring the process. To do this effectively, they need a properly designed and maintained alarm management system. Unfortunately, many alarm systems impede operators from responding quickly and appropriately to critical situations. The costs associated with poor alarm management strategies relate to quality, lost production time, damage to assets, and jeopardy to human life.
The First Line of Defense
Control systems are intended to maintain the process within desired safety and performance limits. Operators intervene to keep the process within normal operating parameters. When processes deviate from normal operating conditions, upset conditions ensue. The ability to quickly correct deviations during abnormal situations can avoid unplanned downtime or catastrophic failure, thus improving safety, availability, and profitability. A well-designed alarm system can even avoid situations and less significant events like product loss and rework, inefficient operations, and other forms of waste.
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Keywords: Digital Transformation, ESG, Sustainability, Alarm Management, ARC Advisory Group.