Alarm Management

The subject of alarm handling has been the focus of much attention in recent years, with a number of high profile industrial accidents around the world being linked to poor alarm management. Long lists of standing alarms and floods of alarms during plant upset are commonly associated with the modern production systems, and are known to contribute to operator stress, unnecessary production loss and reduced plant safety.

These negative ingredients could potentially result in, personnel injury, damage to the environment or even loss of life.

CSE Servelec have carried out a number of Alarm Management projects, in particular in close cooperation with BP for their Southern North Sea assests. At the heart of our approach to Alarm Management is to agree a strategy at the outset of the project.

This strategy should be generally consistent with industry best practice as captured in EEMUA Publication 191 (‘Alarm Systems – A Guide to Design, Management and Procurement’)

This strategy is likely to focuses on alarms that are viewed at a manned location (control room) by means of on a screen-based computerised facility. This may include the following Production Systems:

Process Control System (PCS)
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system
Process Shutdown Systems (PSS)
Environmental Monitoring systems
Condition Monitoring system
Emergency shutdown systems
Metering systems

For further details, please contact sales@cse-servelec.com.