Key points
Most manufacturers, whether they openly admit it or not, have too many alarms. Since the 1970s, the number of alarms configured per operator has steadily increased from hundreds to thousands. This can be attributed to a number of factors including more sensors with more potential signals and alarm states and the ever-increasing complexity of manufacturing alarm management systems and environments.
There is often a default philosophy amongst manufacturers in which they take a ‘better safe than sorry’ or ‘if in doubt mark it as high priority’ approach. This can often be attributed to a lack of communication between those that design the manufacturing site and those that put in the SCADA or other systems. Alarmingly, a lack of a clear Manufacturing Alarm Management Philosophy is the most common cause.
However, following some high-profile disasters in the oil, gas and energy sector, industry-wide standards such as Engineering Equipment and Materials Users’ Association (EEMUA) 191 have gradually gained prominence.
The risks are not limited to those industries though. For food and beverage manufacturers, whilst issues may not result in disasters, they can cause other problems such as unexpected downtime, wastage and severely impacted performance, to name just a few.
What we’ve learnt from these disasters, large and small, is that more often than not they are caused by an operator making the wrong decision based on the information he or she thinks she has about what is going on in the process. So yes, it’s human error, but the cause of this human error lies deeper within the infrastructure.
Many disasters have been caused by cascades of alarms, referred to as ‘Alarm Storms’ –when multiple alarms are triggered almost simultaneously, leaving the operator no choice but to prioritise some over others.
To address this, EEMUA 191 recommends no more than ten alarms be configured per operator in a six hour period in order to reduce the risk of ‘cognitive overload’ – in other words, operators ‘not being able to see the wood from the trees’.
So, what are the other challenges presented by Manufacturing Alarm Management Systems?
There may be alarms which appear and disappear before the operator can take action or even acknowledge the alarms have been displayed (chattering alarms)
Some alarms may not provide sufficient time for the operator to take action before the process is stopped by the automation or emergency shut down logic
Unmanaged alarms can result in downtime, off spec quality, waste, planning and logistic problems
In some cases situations result in accidents, with equipment damage, injuries, penalties and fines.
However, the good news is that technologies now exist that enable manufacturers to measure themselves against alarm standards quickly.
Manufacturing Alarm Management is an important way of measuring the workload of an operator, improving the control and HMI systems and analysing which equipment provides more problems than others and it is a valuable tool for reducing operational and capital expenditures.
Manufacturing Alarm management experts can also provide recommendations that will not only help define a sensible alarm management philosophy tailored to the customer but also help implement these changes without the need for costly re-engineering.
Using modern software and technologies to better analyse and understand alarms is part of the bigger picture of Operational Intelligence (OI), presenting you with actionable information from real-time analytics. Importantly, OI can ensure that the right information is delivered to the right person in the right format and at the right time.
Managing alarm management system data
The next step for the manufacturing industry will see data from various niche manufacturing systems such as Manufacturing Execution Systems, Supervisory Control and Data Acquisitions, Maintenance Management Systems and Laboratory Information Management Systems, aggregated together.
This can then be manipulated and analysed using accessible browser based, slice-and-dice enabled technologies such as Wonderware Intelligence and Wonderware Corporate Energy Management.
This will become commonplace and allow those running businesses to see energy usage across the production process and how that data tracks back to the bottom line.
Operational Intelligence
Additionally, Operational Intelligence can deliver valuable insights into other areas of the manufacturing process, providing further cut-through for a host of efficiencies outside including energy usage.
With greater access to data on batch and quality management, manufacturers are able to ensure that productivity remains high, which in turn can help reduce surplus energy consumption.
For example our solutions allow the monitoring and controlling of quality in real-time, improving product consistency and compliance with both internal specification and external regulations.
Again, this allows for performance abnormalities to be spotted instantly, ensuring that errors can be corrected and unscheduled downtime and other issues such as spoilage and wastage further prevented.
What’s more, these solutions can sit alongside other monitoring software and offer manufacturers scalable functionality, from entry level targeting specific elements of performance to full scope integrating with and addressing all levels of operations.
Alarm management strategy
Having an alarm management strategy is vital to ensure you can monitor the workload of an operator; improve and control HMI systems; analyse what equipment is failing and enable your operators to prioritise their actions and deal with the alarms in an appropriate order.
Production sites, people and equipment do not always behave as expected.
And sometimes, when the three combine, the effects are unexpected and disastrous. As a result, well designed alarm systems and an alarm management strategy are essential to ensure those on the front line have everything they need.
Giving operators the opportunity to easily and quickly identify an alarm that requires response is essential to protecting both the productivity and safety of a manufacturing system.
With a robust and logical response procedure in place, manufacturers can be confident that alarms will only sound when necessary, saving potential loss of earnings and at the more serious end of the scale, preventing disaster.
