Alarm Management Program: Implementation Experience in a Petrochemical Company

Transcription

1 Alarm Management Program: Implementation Experience in a Petrochemical Company Mauricio Moreno Santos, Braskem, DE, Gerência de Automação Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil address: mauricio.moreno@braskem.com.br Bárbara Sá Braskem, DE, Gerência de Automação, Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil address: barbara.sa@braskem.com.br ABSTRACT Following Abnormal Situation Management best practices, a corporate wide Alarm Management Program was implemented in a big petrochemical company. A world class alarm management software was implemented. It collects alarms data automatically from different control systems. Alarms were collected and compared against international accepted EEMUA based KPIs benchmarks. EEMUA (Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association) is a European, non profit industry association, run for the benefit of companies that own or operate industrial facilities. EEMUA s KPIs were adopted and gaps reduction goals were agreed. Alarm Management Program was aligned with ICMM based Quality Program in order to warranty sustainable results. An Alarm Philosophy was implemented where alarm Management responsibilities and activities were detailed and agreed. Alarm rationalization teams, including alarm management champions were created and trained.. Alarm Management Philosophy was reviewed by Alarm rationalization teams. Most recurring alarms (bad actors) were first eliminated based on Six Sigma like methodology. Alarms modifications were done by following Management of Change Procedures... Initial results as well as operators acceptance were very good. Top management reports with graphic evolution are reported monthly. Alarm Management Program is being executed in existing plants and it is being extended to new acquired plants. Besides increasing situation awareness, including safety related ones; it is also reducing operators stress and increasing their productivity. The main reasons for the success of the initiative were top management and technical personnel buy in, a strong training program as well as the

2 combination of a widespread safety culture and an aggressive quality program.. 1. INTRODUCTION Abnormal Situation is a disturbance or series of disturbances in a process that cause plant operations to deviate from their normal operating state. They happen when the automated control system can not cope and consequently, the operations team must intervene to supplement the control system. These disturbances may cause a reduction in production; in more serious cases it may endanger human life. They extend, develop, and change over time in the dynamic process control environments increasing the complexity of the intervention requirements (ASM, 1998). Based on data from insurance reports, it is estimated that the cost of lost production due to accidents to be at least $10 billion annually in the U.S. Costs of equipment repair, replacement, environmental fines, compensation for human casualties, investigation, litigation, etc., represent another $10 billion (ASM, 1999). 2. SITUATION AWARENESS Much work was done on Abnormal Situation Management especially for situation awareness issues. Situation awareness is the one where the operator will proactively monitor the plant to establish and maintain awareness of the current state of the process to ensure operational integrity, contribute significantly to the plant s optimization, and respond correctly and timely to abnormal situations. 3. ALARMS Alarms place an important role in situation awareness. They are required when the operator s attention is being demanded elsewhere, or workload is too great to monitor all points on his/her own. Critical process alarms indicate abnormal situation events and are potential triggers for near-miss process safety events. In an effectively rationalized alarm system, the count of alarms represents the count of transitions into the upset region. On the other hand, bad alarm systems are recognized common problem in industry. They are often cited as contributing factors in industria incidents: Milford Haven (Health & Safety Executive, 1997), BP explosion (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007 ), and so many more. EEMUA (Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association) is a European, non profit industry association, run for the benefit of companies that own or operate industrial facilities. EEMUA publishes a range of engineering guides, industry standards and specifications. In 1999, EEMUA did the world a large service via the original publication of their document 191: Alarm Systems: A Guide to Design, Management, and Procurement. This foundational document addressed the widespread problems associated with screen-based alarm systems, mostly associated with Distributed Control Systems

3 (DCSs). In this document, EEMUA described a variety of principles, practices, measurements, work practices, and provided other valuable information about Alarm Management (Hollifield, 2007). EEMUA identifies 3 measurements as Key Performance Indicators. They are: Average Alarm rate (per 10 minute or per hour); Maximum alarm rate (per 10 minute); Percentage of Time alarm rates are outside of the acceptability target. Using those KPIs, EEMUA (2007) also describes a 5-level performance ranking system ranging form Overloaded, as the bottom end of the scale, through Reactive, Stable, Robust, to Predictive as the highest level of performance (Figure 1). Average alarm rate (expressed as alarms per 10 minutes) Leve 5 Predictive % time alarms rates outside target (5 per 10 minute period) 1% 5% 25% 50% Level 4 Robust Level 3 Stable Level 2 Reactive Level 1 Overloaded Maximum alarm rate (expressed as number of alarms in a 10 minute period) Figure 1: Alarms systems performance levels 4. ALARM MANAGEMENT PROGRAM A corporate-wide Alarm Management Program based on EEMUA Guidelines was implemented in a big petrochemical plant. It was composed of hardware and software infrastructrure installation, procedures implementation and training. 4.1 CORPORATE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM Alarm Management Program was integrated with Corporate Process Improvement Program (Braskem+). Braskem+ Process Improvement Program is a process approach based quality program aimed at to optimize resources and to warranty sustainable results.it combines 5 different elements in the 5 maturity stages of ICMM - Integrated Capability Maturity Model (Figure 2). The elements are the following: equipments reliability, focused improvement, production reliability, processes standardization, and physical organization.

4 HSE sustentability was also integrated to the program. Alarm Management is one of the tools related to Production Reliability. 1 Initial Performed 2 Repeatable Managed 3 Defined Defined 4 5 Managed Optimizing Quantitatively Optimizing Managed Figure 2: ICMM maturity levels ICMM is a model that determines what an organization does and how disciplined it is in doing it, by creating a framework for achieving an enterprise-wide approach to continuous process improvement (FAA) CORPORATE-WIDE ALARM PROCEDURES Corporate-wide Alarm standard and procedures were implemented where alarm management responsibilities and activities were detailed and agreed (Figure 3). Figure 3: Alarms standard and procedures structure orgazination Corporate-wideAlarm Philosophy Standard included management and technical roles and responsabilities, KPIs, methodologies, guidelines for the design, priorization and configuration of alarms, and a plan for their sustaining and improvement. An important role is the Alarm Champions. They are chosen from operators team. They are responsible for alarms evaluation, and improvement, as well for the dissemination of the importance of a manageable alarm system. Alarms priorization guidelines were defined according to events severity and operators time to respond (Figure 4).

5 SEVERITY OF EVENT URGENCY OF OPERATOR S RESPONSE LOW SEVERITY MODERATE SEVERITY CRITICAL OR CATASTROPHIC SEVERITY Slow Action Low Priority Low Priority Average Priority Intermediary Action Low Priority Average Priority High Priority Immediate Action Average Priority High Priority High Priority Figure 4: Alarms priorization Procedures were issued including (i) methodogies and tools for alarms analysis and monitoring, (ii) alarms rationalization, and (iii) Digital Control Systems (DCS) configuration. Alarm rationalization is a procedural PHA-like activity guided by plant alarm philosophy to assess the validity, causes, priority,, and consequences of alarms of all instruments of the plant. It relies heavily on teamwork (facilitator, board operators, process & control engineers, safety, health, environmental representatives and production & maintenance engineers). 4.3 CORPORATEWIDE ALARM SYSTEM World class alarm management software and IT infras-structure were implemented (Matrikon). They collect alarms data automatically from different control systems (Figure 6). Figure 5: Alarm management system infra-structure

6 Real time and historical data, automatic reports, analysis and manage of change (MOC) tools are available by web based interfaces everywhere (Figure 6, 7)). Figure 6: Alarm system real time viewer Figure 7: Alarm system analysis tool 5. IMPLEMENTATION. Alarms were collected and compared against EEMUA based KPIs benchmarks. Gap evaluation had a very big impact to both top management and technical personnel situation

7 awareness. Gap reduction goals were agreed and integrated with corporate process improvement program. Alarm rationalization teams composed of production engineers, operators, and automation engineer were created and trained. They first reviewed larm management philosophy in order to align expectations. Most recurring alarms (called bad actors ) were first eliminated based on Six Sigma like methodology. Alarms configuration modifications were done by following existing management of change procedures. Bad actors elimination was redone until Paretto chart reached a flat profile. Alarm rationalization was then done from the most recurring plants to the least ones. 6. RESULTS Top management reports with graphic evolution are reported monthly (Figure 9). Initial results as well as operators acceptance were very good.. Alarm Management Program is being executed in existing plants and being extended to new acquired ones. Besides increasing situation awareness, it is also reducing operators team stress and increasing its productivity. Figure 8: 2009 Alarm evolution report. Single unit example 7. CONCLUSIONS A corporate alarm management program was implemented successfully in a petrochemical company. The main reasons for the success of the initiative were (i) the high visibility of the program, (ii) integration with state of the art quality and safety program, (iii) top management and technical personnel buy in, (iv) clear and well defined KPIs, gap reduction objectives and pathforward, (v) strong safety culture, (vi) comprehensive training program, and (vii) best in class procedures and tools. High visibility of the program is attributed to its corporate-wide nature, and to world class alarm management software features.

8 8. REFERENCES 1. Nimmo, Ian, The ASM Story, Hydrocarbon Magazine, ASM Consortium Internal Research Health & Safety Executive. The explosion and fires at Texaco Refinery, Milford Haven, 24th July HSE Books, (1997). 4. U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Investigation Report, Refinery Explosion and Fire, BP Texas City, Texas, March 23, Report No I-TX. U.S. CSB, Engineering Equipment and Materials User Association, Alarm systems: A guide to design, management, and procurement (Pub. No. 191), London: EEMUA, Hollifield, Bill, A Review of the Second Edition (2007) version of EEMUA s Publication 191: Alarm Systems: A Guide to Design, Management, and Procurement, Engineering Equipment and Materials User Association, Alarm systems: A guide to design, management, and procurement (Pub. No. 191), London: EEMUA,, 2 nd edition, FAA, site 9. Matrikon,