Alarm management is the application of human factors (or ergonomics as the field is referred to outside the U.S.) along with instrumentation engineering and systems thinking to manage the design of an alarm system to increase its usability. Most often the major usability problem is that there are too many alarms annunciated in a plant upset, commonly referred to as alarm flood, since it is so similar to a flood caused by excessive rainfall input with a basically fixed drainage output capacity. However, there can also be other problems with an alarm system such as poorly designed alarms, improperly set alarm points, ineffective annunciation, unclear alarm messages, etc. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Ergonomics. ... It has been suggested that Human factors be merged into this article or section. ... Instrumentation Engineering is the art of connecting multiple disciplines of engineering. ... Systems thinking involves the use of various techniques to study systems of many kinds. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ... Usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, design is used as both a noun and a verb. ... For the British anti-radiation missile, see ALARM. An alarm gives an audible or visual warning of a problem or condition. ... A system is an assemblage of inter-related elements comprising a unified whole. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Look up Flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A flood (in Old English flod, a word common to Teutonic languages; compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float) is an overflow of water, an expanse of water submerging land, a deluge. ... Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given area. ...

The need for alarm management

Alarm management is usually necessary in a process manufacturing environment that is controlled by an operator using a Distributed Control System, or DCS. Such a system may have hundreds of individual alarms that up until very recently have probably been designed with only limited consideration of other alarms in the system. Since humans can only do one thing at a time and can pay attention to a limited number of things at a time, there needs to be a way to ensure that alarms are presented at a rate that can be assimilated by a human operator, particularly when the plant is upset or in an unusual condition. Alarms also need to be capable of directing the operator's attention to the most important problem that he or she needs to act upon, using a priority to indicate degree of importance or rank, for instance. A good example of this problem is from the old US sitcom MASH. A common scene was Radar O'Reilly slipping in a requisition for something that Hawkeye wanted in the stack of papers for Colonel Potter to sign. In much the same way, if alarms were unprioritized, the important ones can be mixed in with lower value nuisance ones. Process (lat. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... A distributed control system (DCS) is part of a manufacturing system. ... DCS is an acronym and can mean: a Digital Cellular System or DCS 1800 a digital cross connect system a type of telecom equipment Digital Cellular System (GSM-1800), a mobile communications-based PCS network used outside of the U.S. a Distributed Control System (Industrial Automation) an illness related... Look up Attention in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one thing while ignoring other things. ... Generally, rank is a system of hierarchy used to classify like things. ... A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. ... M*A*S*H at the Internet Movie Database M*A*S*H Timeline Encyclopedia of Television Finest Kind - Fan Site w/ News, Episode Guides, Video Clips U.K. Fan Site w/ Interviews, Episode Guides Best Care Anywhere - Fan Site w/ Episode Guides, Memorable Moments TV Tome Yahoo Groups M... Corporal Walter Eugene Radar OReilly is a fictional character in the novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, the movie M*A*S*H, the television series M*A*S*H, the television movie W*A*L*T*E*R and two episodes of the series After M... The word Hawkeye may be applied in a number of ways: James Fenimore Cooper invented the character of Hawkeye, first of the long rifles, and his faithful Mohican blood brother Chingachgook, in The Pioneers, published in 1823. ... Colonel Sherman T. Potter was a fictional character from the M*A*S*H television show. ...

Some improvement methods

The techniques for achieving rate reduction range from the extremely simple ones of reducing nuisance and low value alarms to redesigning the alarm system in a holistic way that considers the relationships among individual alarms. Holism (from holon, a Greek word meaning entity) is the idea that the properties of a system cannot be determined or explained by the sum of its components alone. ...

Nuisance Reduction

The first step in a continuous improvement program is often to measure alarm rate, and resolve any chronic problems such as alarms that have no use (often described as one that does not require the operator to take an action). Continuous improvement is a phrase suggesting that a process or product should always get better as knowledge about it and experience with it accumulates over time. ...

Design Guide

This step involves documenting the methodology or philosophy of how to design alarms. It can include things such as what to alarm, standards for alarm annunciation and text messages, how the operator will interact with the alarms, etc. These five broad types of question are called analytical or logical, epistemological, ethical, metaphysical, and aesthetic respectively. ... The word standard has several meanings: Originally, standard referred to a conspicuous object used as a rallying point in battle. ...

Documentation and Rationalization

This phase is a detailed review of all alarms to document their design purpose, and to ensure that they are selected and set properly and meet the design criteria. Ideally this stage will result in a reduction of alarms, but doesn't always. For the R.E.M. album, see: Document (album) A document is a writing that contains information. ...

Advanced Methods

The above steps will often still fail to prevent an alarm flood in an operational upset, so advanced methods such as alarm suppression under certain circumstances are then necessary. As an example, shutting down a pump will always cause a low flow alarm on the pump outlet flow, so the low flow alarm may be suppressed if the pump was shut down since it adds no value for the operator, because he or she already knows it was caused by the pump being shutdown. This technique can of course get very complicated and requires considerable care in design. Manual pump used to obtain water A pump is a mechanical device used to move liquids or gases. ...

Alarm management becomes more and more necessary as the complexity and size of manufacturing systems increases. A lot of the need for alarm management also arises because alarms can be configured on a DCS at nearly zero incremental cost, whereas in the past on physical control panel systems that consisted of individual pneumatic or electronic analog instruments, each alarm required expenditure and control panel real estate, so more thought usually went into the need for an alarm. Numerous disasters such as Three Mile Island and the Chernobyl accident have established a clear need for alarm management. Complexity is the opposite of simplicity. ... Categories: Technology stubs | Technology ... Pneumatics, from the Greek πνευματικός (pneumatikos, coming from the wind) is the use of pressurized air in science and technology. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with electronic engineering. ... An analog or analogue signal is any continuously variable signal. ... An instrument is a concrete or abstract tool intended for a purpose other than mechanical work, in particular a refined one. ... Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station consists of two nuclear reactors, each with its own containment building and cooling towers. ... The nuclear power plant at Chernobyl prior to the completion of the sarcophagus. ...

See also

• List of human-computer interaction topics, since most control systems are computer-based
• Design, especially interaction design
• Signal detection theory

This is a list of topics in human-computer interaction. ... Usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, design is used as both a noun and a verb. ... Interaction design is a multidisciplinary field coming from HCI which examines the role of embedded behaviors and intelligence in physical and virtual spaces as well as the convergence of physical and digital products. ... Signal detection theory, or SDT, is a means to quantify the ability to discern between signal and noise. ...

External links

• Alarm news portal Authoritative news site for burglar alarm, intruder alarm and fire alarm systems and solutions
• "Better Alarm handling", from the British Government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
• EEMUA 191 Alarm Systems - A Guide to Design, Management and Procurement (1999) ISBN 0859310760