Alarm Management Lifecycle

In the beginning . . .

On Friday December 19, 2003, TiPS received an invitation to participate on the newly formed ISA SP18.2 Committee.  On the next Monday, Donald Campbell-Brown from British Petroleum UK replied to the committee invitation with a need to improve on the EEMUA Publication 191 “Alarm Systems – A Guide to Design, Management, and Procurement.”  One of his significant gaps was “Cross-industry sharing of experience on the practical application of alarm system improvement efforts (tools, processes, behaviours).”

In June 2009, the ISA 18.2 Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries standard was approved. This offically introduced the Alarm Management Lifecycle, and Donald Campbell-Brown’s request was realized.  Since then it has been adopted and incorporated into the IEC 62682 “Management of Alarms for the Process Industry” standard.

As you look at the various stages of the Alarm Management Lifecycle, it has many of the same stages as other continuous improvement programs: specification, design, implementation, production, assessment and improvement.

The goal for TiPS is to provide tools and expertise to helps others implement the Lifecycle.  As with any continuous improvement program, the upkeep may be resource constrained.  This results with a few Lifecycle stages initially implemented or partially implemented.  Enabling monitoring and assessment activities using LogMate® can be a cost-effective method to benchmark your alarm system and provide the justification for a larger investment.