Do your operators feel overwhelmed by alarm floods? This project resulted in a guide that can help you understand and implement strategies for state-based alarming.
Proper alarm suppression will reduce operator workload during process upsets and facilitate detection of independent malfunctions.
A. Are there best practices to suppress alarms under abnormal conditions such as startups, shutdowns, product changes?
B. Can state-based alarm management be used for effective alarm management?
C. Can principles or best practices be used for managing alarms under startup/shutdown conditions?
Even with proper selection and rationalization of alarms, flooding in upsets is possible that can overwhelm the operator and render the alarm system useless. This blinds the operator to further problems or developments.
The main deliverable of this project is a document compiling the findings of the discussions. This information can then be used to better define future research project goals.