Educational Alarm Management Software Webinar Series Starts March 2018

M.A.C. Solutions, developer of the ProcessVue® suite of alarm management software, is hosting a series of educational webinars on alarm management for the process industries. The first webinar session on “Benchmarking your Alarm System” will be hosted by Ian Brown, Alarm Rationalisation and Services Manager at MAC Solutions (UK) and will take place on 14th March 2018.

Further webinars are planned for 2018, including:

• Master Alarm Databases: what format? (25th April 2018).
• Alarm System Performance KPIs (13th June 2018).
• Alarm Enforcement or not? (19th September 2018).

Alarm System Benchmarking

Understanding how well you manage your alarms and alarm systems is fundamental to being able to demonstrate not only your compliance with standards and regulatory obligations, but also what improvements have been made. This is particularly important should you be so unfortunate as to be in the spotlight of regulatory scrutiny.

The first webinar, “Benchmarking your alarm system”, will answer questions such as;

• What is benchmarking and why should I carry one out?
• How do I benchmark and what tools do I need to carry one out?

Advice and guidance will also be provided on topics such as: the relevant industry standards and guidelines; structured interviews; statistical analysis of alarm rates and KPIs; the benefits of benchmarking; and what to do after a benchmark assessment is completed.

Ian Brown, Alarm Rationalisation and Services Manager at MAC Solutions (UK) comments:

“A benchmark assessment is not simply a numerical analysis of the number and rate of alarms being presented to the operators. A benchmark assessment should employ a holistic approach where every aspect of alarm management is thoroughly examined and compared against legislative, regulatory and corporate obligations, the requirements of standards and industry best practice.”

“A thorough benchmark assessment represents a significant undertaking and is a process that requires preparation, detailed examination of all alarm management aspects, and subsequently, the compilation of a thorough report providing a gap analysis between requirements and realities with recommendations for actions required to close the gaps,” he adds.