New Software Reduces Alarm Rationalisation Time and Cost

One requirement of Pipeline Operational Excellence in the control room is the implementation of an Alarm Management Plan, including rationalisation of all safety alarms to reduce alarm flood as required by the PHMSA CRM rule.

The cost of implementing an Alarm Management Plan can reach $300,000 or more. However the biggest component in this cost is not the software, it is the time and cost that company personnel spend rationalising each safety alarm. The result of rationalising each alarm is to define its alarm priority – critical, high, medium, or low and to create an alarm response sheet to guide the controller’s actions. Typical alarm rationalisation exercises involve 5 or more people sitting around the table discussing what caused the alarm, how to confirm the alarm, what happens if the alarm is ignored, and what action to take to prevent “bad things” from happening. If each alarm takes 15 minutes of conversation, and you have 2,000 safety alarms to rationalise that results in 5+ of your key people spending up to 12 weeks, or 2,500 man/hours on this exercise.

Is there a better way? We think so and you prove it to yourself – request information on the EnerSys (USA) POEMS Alarm Management software (ALMgr) and get the FREE Alarm Rationalization Cost Estimator.