TLDR; is a series of book reviews, from the perspective of someone who works in automation.
There are few more crucial topics to good operations than alarms. Alarms should alert operators to unusual situations that require their intervention. They should not be statuses of normal operation, too frequent or, worst of all, inaccurate.
Alarm Management: A Comprehensive Guide by Bill Hollifield and Eddie Habibi should be mandatory reading for anyone planning a career in automation. For reasons unknown, it is not. However, if you are serious about moving forward in this field, stop reading the blog and get a copy.
...
...
...
I can see you did not follow my advice. Maybe you are unsure about this book, or otherwise engaged. Maybe this is not a month you have the spare cash. Hence, I will need to persuade you. Let's start by discussing the chapters.
Alarm Management Best Practices: Highly Condensed
The History and Nature of the Alarm Problem
How Do You Justify Alarm Management?
Common DSC and SCADA Alarm Display Capabilities- and Their Misuse
Step 1: The Alarm Philosophy
Step 2: Baseline and Benchmarking of Alarm System Performance
Step 3: Alarm Bad Actor Analysis and Solution
Step 4: Alarm Documentation and Rationalization
Step 5: Alarm Auditing and Enforcement
Step 6: Advanced, Real-Time Alarm Solutions
Step 7: The Control and Maintenance of Alarm System IMprovements
Understanding and Applying ANSI/ISA-18.2: Management of Alarms for the Process Industries
The Future of Alarm Management
The introduction, titled "Unintended Consequences," by Jim Pinto, is gold. From "Technology has often advanced faster than our ability to use it effectively. We embrace the newest, shiniest technical toy and only later realize the unintended consequences" could be a mantra of most Industry 4.0 products. "Many alarm systems have been implemented with any proper guidance... Vastly over-alarmed systems producing thousands of alarms per day became common. Poorly performing alarm systems have been cited as specific contributing factors to major accidents and losses." It sounds like Three-Mile Island.
The material inside matches the quality of the intro. My favorite excerpt is from 5.12 Safety System (or ESD) Priority
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"The real crisis is not the crisis. The real crisis is what you do before and after it."- David Gerrold
Many engineers think every Trip Notification alarm ("The compressor has been shut down!") should be priority 1, especially if it is generated from the Safety System. This is most assuredly not the case!
It may well be that proper alarm D&R shows the pre-alarm to a trip might be a Priority 2 or 1 alarm, but the Trip Notification itself (i.e., the shutdown has occurred) may well be a Priority 3 alarm. This is perfectly acceptable!
Which is a more important alarm? Which would you rather respond to?
"Mommy, I need to goooooooooo..."
or
"Mommy, I went."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is absolutely spot-on. Real problems, real context, real explanations. 11/10, I highly recommend it.
Kommentare