Alarm management, AI and more with Applied Control Engineering

Oh, man, that sounds like a rough, one of those persistent problems that it's hard to wring out.

You already mentioned ISA 18.2, but I was going to ask, you know, what else might be going on with alarm standards lately? You know, have they made progress? If not, why not? I guess maybe start off, how recently was 18.2 put in place? Is that...

couple of years ago or more than a couple of years ago 2016. now 2016 seems recent but then i when i interview people i say the 80s were 20 years ago and then i realized the 80s were 40 years ago and so 2016 sounds recent but then i look at the calendar and it's like oh man that's 10 years that's a that's a solid decade It sure it is.

It is.

But the good news is the core concepts of alarm philosophy really have not changed much.

What we're seeing a lot more change is the context and the presentation of those core alarm philosophies through the different technologies.

So in our particular case.

You know, you look at like a Rockwell system, right? The way that they manage their alarms and the way that they present their alarms has become more easy to understand and easier to troubleshoot.

Same with Siemens, same with Aviva system platform, right? They are adjusting their display systems and their alarm management systems to better reflect what is an ISA 18.2.

Yeah.

Just as a side question, I guess, you know, ISA covers certain process industries, but has there been any alignment or, you know, commonality established between, you know, different industries of their safety standards, you know, between like oil and gas or pharma or water, wastewater? Have any of those, like, come to an understanding?

Well, that's a good question.

I... realistically the the way that every area approaches an alarm philosophy usually is about the same right because when you're looking at a specific action right you're looking at something that an operator needs to respond to all processes you know assess that alarm condition based on the same three things what's the risk of uh human damage what's the risk of equipment damage and what's the risk of environmental damage Right.

We don't want a situation where a high level in a tank is going to cause an explosion, right? Obviously, that's the worst case scenario.

But we also don't want a situation where if this alarm is not responded to, this pump breaks and it's $2.5 million to replace.

You know what I mean? So in terms of interpreting those standards, most industries are pretty aligned for understanding how to rationalize and how to apply these alarm systems.

That doesn't mean they all do with consistency, right? A lot of times what you'll see is companies will...

do upfront alarm philosophy development, understand the alarms that are going in, but they don't follow up.

A big part of ISA 18.2 is that continuous monitoring and reassessment of your alarms.

You know, once you put the alarms in, get six months, get a year of data and then see what alarms are happening, right? How long does it take operators to respond to? A lot of good systems now actually have alarm history.

So you can go back and see, you know, I know these alarms are triggering three times as many as every other alarm and things like that, right? I know that these alarms are, I get an alarm flood.

I think we're going to talk about those probably a little bit later, but you know, like I get an alarm here and then these six more alarms come out right after it.

Oh, man, that sounds like a rough, one of those persistent problems that it's hard to wring out.

You already mentioned ISA 18.2, but I was going to ask, you know, what else might be going on with alarm standards lately? You know, have they made progress? If not, why not? I guess maybe start off, how recently was 18.2 put in place? Is that...

couple of years ago or more than a couple of years ago 2016. now 2016 seems recent but then i when i interview people i say the 80s were 20 years ago and then i realized the 80s were 40 years ago and so 2016 sounds recent but then i look at the calendar and it's like oh man that's 10 years that's a that's a solid decade It sure it is.

It is.

But the good news is the core concepts of alarm philosophy really have not changed much.

What we're seeing a lot more change is the context and the presentation of those core alarm philosophies through the different technologies.

So in our particular case.

You know, you look at like a Rockwell system, right? The way that they manage their alarms and the way that they present their alarms has become more easy to understand and easier to troubleshoot.

Same with Siemens, same with Aviva system platform, right? They are adjusting their display systems and their alarm management systems to better reflect what is an ISA 18.2.

Yeah.

Just as a side question, I guess, you know, ISA covers certain process industries, but has there been any alignment or, you know, commonality established between, you know, different industries of their safety standards, you know, between like oil and gas or pharma or water, wastewater? Have any of those, like, come to an understanding?

Well, that's a good question.

I... realistically the the way that every area approaches an alarm philosophy usually is about the same right because when you're looking at a specific action right you're looking at something that an operator needs to respond to all processes you know assess that alarm condition based on the same three things what's the risk of uh human damage what's the risk of equipment damage and what's the risk of environmental damage Right.

We don't want a situation where a high level in a tank is going to cause an explosion, right? Obviously, that's the worst case scenario.

But we also don't want a situation where if this alarm is not responded to, this pump breaks and it's $2.5 million to replace.

You know what I mean? So in terms of interpreting those standards, most industries are pretty aligned for understanding how to rationalize and how to apply these alarm systems.

That doesn't mean they all do with consistency, right? A lot of times what you'll see is companies will...

do upfront alarm philosophy development, understand the alarms that are going in, but they don't follow up.

A big part of ISA 18.2 is that continuous monitoring and reassessment of your alarms.

You know, once you put the alarms in, get six months, get a year of data and then see what alarms are happening, right? How long does it take operators to respond to? A lot of good systems now actually have alarm history.

So you can go back and see, you know, I know these alarms are triggering three times as many as every other alarm and things like that, right? I know that these alarms are, I get an alarm flood.

I think we're going to talk about those probably a little bit later, but you know, like I get an alarm here and then these six more alarms come out right after it.