Alarm Management

Poor performing alarm systems overwhelm the operator with alarm floods and hinder his ability to effectively manage plant upsets. Industry incident investigations have shown that time is the most critical factor in a console operator’s ability to deal with abnormal situations. They must often be able to take action within seconds in order to safely mitigate the impact of an upset.

PAS is the original alarm management software and engineering services company. Our more than 200 years of cumulative experience in this field has resulted in software that improves the safety and profitability of plants worldwide. Industry leaders around the world have selected PAS as their preferred solution provider to improve the performance of their alarm systems.

The Seven Steps to Effective Alarm Management
Implementing alarm management best practices requires an effective and comprehensive methodology supported by mission-specific software and experienced professionals. From our extensive experience, PAS has developed the industry’s most rigorous alarm management methodology. The seven steps in this methodology are:

Alarm Philosophy development, institutionalization, and maintenance
Data collection and benchmarking
“Bad Actor” alarm resolution*
Alarm documentation and rationalization
Alarm audit and enforcement
Real-time alarm management
Alarm system control and maintenance

PSS Alarm Management Software and Services enable effective implementation of this seven-step methodology, which can be found in the second edition of “The Alarm Management Handbook” published by PAS.

*Note: “Bad Actors” are the relative few alarms which produce a significant majority of the problems associated with overloading the operator.