Tuesday 25 February 2014

Alarm Management Part 2 - Auditing Your Alarms

Last week we discussed the issues around alarm performance and how poor management of alarms can result in major disasters, including loss of productivity and significant inefficiencies in your operation. 

We typically suggest our customers undertake an 'alarming' audit every year to understand the impact alarm management is having on the organisation. The following questions can be helpful: 

1. What does your company define as an alarm?
2. How many alarms does an operator encounter?   
3. Who wants this alarm to occur? 
4. Why is it there? 
5. Whats the purpose of the alarm?
6. What action is required?
7. Who is responsible to take this action?
8. Is it a reoccurring alarm?
9. How many alarms are critical?
10. What are the most common alarms causing your operators most issues?
11. Are your alarm priorities set to low / too high? 
12. How many levels of alarms do you have?
13. What are the quality of your alarms like?
14. Does it give the operators the right level of detail?
15. What are your response times?
16. Does your current alarm handling strategy cause operator stress?

By answering these questions you can determine where your organisation sits on the Alarm Management and Analysis Chart below:




















We would typically advise our customers who fall into the orange and red zones that an alarm management solution is requiredA company's alarm system should act as a watchdog; if it does not provide the right information, at the right time, and to the right people, it is not providing the situational awareness required in modern operations.

Next Week: We explore best practices for good alarm management. 

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