alarm management a journey towards process safety · alarm management : summary management drive:...

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Alarm Management – a journey towards

Process Safety

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EQUATE Petrochemical Company / www.equate.com

Balasubramanian ElamaranProcess Automation Leader,

Technology Improvement Dept.

EQUATE Petrochemical Co.

S.C. BhadraSenior Process Automation Engineer,

Technology Improvement Dept.

EQUATE Petrochemical Co.

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About EQUATE Group

The EQUATE Group* is a global producer of petrochemicals and the world’s second largest

producer of Ethylene Glycol (EG).

The Group has industrial complexes in Kuwait, North America and Europe that annually

produce over 5 million tons of Ethylene, Ethylene Glycol (EG), Polyethylene (PE) and

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET). The products are marketed throughout Asia, the Americas,

Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The EQUATE Group’s shareholders include Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The

Dow Chemical Company (Dow), Boubyan Petrochemical Company (BPC) and Qurain

Petrochemical Industries Company (QPIC).

The Group is a leading enterprise that pursues sustainability wherever it operates through

partnerships in fields that include the environment, economy and society.

EQUATE also operates Styrene plant, Poly Propylene and Aromatics plants owned by The

Kuwait Styrene Co (TKSC), Petrochemical Industries Co (PIC) & Kuwait Paraxylene

Production Co (KPPC), respectively.

* The EQUATE Group includes EQUATE Petrochemical Company (EQUATE), its subsidiaries

and The Kuwait Olefins Company (TKOC).

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Click to edit Master title styleEQUATE Group at a glance

Providing valued products to the world

PROFIT PRODUCTS*EMPLOYEESOPERATIONS AWARDS

US$ 679

Million (2016)

PE / EG / SM

PX / BZ / HA / PP

+1500

Employees

Kuwait, North

America &

Europe

National &

International

Awards

* Polyethylene (PE), Ethylene Glycol (EG), Styrene Monomer (SM), Paraxylene (PX), Benzene (BZ) ,Heavy Aromatics (HA) and

Polypropylene (PP).

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AGENDA

Alarm Management a journey towards Process Safety:

Need

Standards

Lifecycle

Journey: Stage -1

Journey: Stage -2

Journey: Stage -3

Journey - Improvement plan : Stage -4

Summary

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Alarm Management – Need

Alarms - to invite operators’ attention & action.

After introduction of DCS / PLCs, adding process alarms

had become easy, practically FREE and so generously

added.

Adverse impact:

Operator gets over-loaded with many alarms.

Operator (being human) might miss important alarms,

resulting in potentially serious consequences.

(Reliability, Safety)

To avoid such cases, alarm management is very important

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COMMUNITY EMERGENCY REPSONSE

PLANT EMERGENCY REPSONSE

PHYSICAL PROTECTION (DIKES)

PHYSICAL PROTECTION (RELIEF DEVICES)

AUTOMATIC ACTION SIS / ESD

CRITICAL ALARMS, OPERATORSUPERVISION, AND MANUAL INTERVENTION

BASIC CONTROLS, PROCESS ALARMS,AND OPERATOR SUPERVISION

PROCESSDESIGN

LAH

1

I

Alarms for

Operator

action

Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) “Onion”

BPCS

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Timely

Operator

Action is the

key

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EEMUA,1st

Publication

(Y 1999)

Principles of Alarm System Design – YA

711 (Y-2001)

NAMUR 102, 3rd Edition (Y-2008)

ANSI/ISA 18.2

(Y-2009)

IEC 62682

(Y-2014)

EEMUA 3rd Publication

(Y-2013)

EEMUA, 2nd

Publication

(Y-2007)

Alarm Management – Standards

Target same for: ANSI/ISA, IEC, EEMUA.

EQUATE follows EEMUA-191 Guidelines (since 2003)(EEMUA: Engineering Equipment Materials & Users Association)

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Management of Change (MOC)

In-built process: soft MOC

Change documentation.

Change reviews & approvals.

Implementation & communication.

Monitoring & Assessment :

Monitoring alarm performance

Setting Alarm Metrics

Performance assessment &

continuous improvement

Audit

Internal & External Audit.

Audit recommendations.

Action plans.

Caution :

Meaningful alarms should not be removed to

meet the goal

Alarm Management – Life Cycle

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Alarm Management Journey - Stages

Stage - 1 Stage - 2 Stage - 3 Stage - 4

Plants/

consoles

Phase-1

plants,

13 consoles

Phase-1 & 2

plants,

25 consoles

Phase-1 & 2

plants,

25 consoles

Phase-1 & 2

plants,

25 consoles

Standard EEMUA -191

Guidelines, 1st

Publication

EEMUA -191

Guidelines, 1st

Publication

EEMUA -191

Guidelines,

2nd Publication

EEMUA -191

Guidelines,

2nd Publication,

Remarks Average

alarms/day

(2003)

Average

alarms/day

(2010)

New KPIs with

3 criteria.

(2014)

KPIs & Stale

alarms.

(2017)

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Alarm Management Journey: Stage-1

Management drive.

Started in 2003.

Bench Mark: EEMUA-191Guidelines (Publication-1) Long term Average

Alarm rates in steady

state operation

Acceptability level Average

alarms/day

> 1 min Very likely to be

unacceptable >720

Unacceptable

One per 2 min Likely to be over

demanding

Up to 720 Overdemanding

One in 5 min Manageable Up to 288 Manageable

Less than one per 10

min

Likely to be

acceptable

Up to 144 Acceptable

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Very high number of alarms: 300-1100/day against

requirement of 144 alarms/day.

Single complex-wide team to drive the targets, to ensure

consistency in approach & to coordinate.

Formed unit-wise focus teams (Operations, EHS, Control

Systems personnel) with targets assigned.

Regular team meetings & actions.

Achieved goal of 144 alarms / day in 3 years time, but unit-

wise focus teams continued to sustain goals.

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Reviewed alarm philosophy and rationalization.

State Based Alarming : When the equipment state changes,

the change in the alarm settings / priority could follow (through

external programming).

Nuisance Alarms Handling: Temporary shelving of Nuisance

alarms; automatically un-shelved after certain time.

(through external programming).

Suppressing Consequential Alarms: Suppressing

consequential alarms can help to reduce additional alarms.

example: pump trip alarm can suppress its low current and low

flow alarms.


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100 200 300 400 500

Sample Data “Before”

200 400 600 800

Sample Data “After”

Improvements seen

on continuous basis

Number of

alarms/day reduced

from >300 to <144

alarms/day (during

normal steady state

operation).

Guidelines has no

condition for any

upset scenarios, so

were manually

excluded.


0

0

1500

1500

750

750

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Included Phase-2 plants (2010).

Honeywell DCS functionality used.

State Based alarming.

(CL Language, Function blocks)

Alarms Shelving – Nuisance alarms / Equipment under

maintenance.

Suppressing Consequential Alarms.


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Not Ready (Out of Service)

Preparation

Ready (Idle)

Fill Mode

Heat Mode

RUN Mode

Offspec Mode

Shutdown Mode

Based on ISA 106 (Procedural

Automation for continuous process

operations).

i.e. State Based Control / Alarming .

Sets good operating discipline.

Example : Distillation column.Tag Parameter NR Prep Ready Fill Heat Run Offspec Shutdown

F1 OOR NE E E E E E E E

F1 L NE NE NE E E E E E

F1 H NE NE NE E E E E E

T1 OOR NE E E E E E E E

T1 L NE NE NE NE E E E E

T1 H NE NE NE NE E E E E

L1 OOR NE E E E E E E E

L1 L NE NE NE E E E E E

L1 H NE NE NE E E E E E

Sequence StepsTYPICAL


E= Enabled, NE= Not Enabled.

F=Flow T=Temp P=Pressure loop

Distillation column States (Typical)

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New KPIs as per EEMUA -191 Guidelines, 2nd Publication

Note 1: All three criteria to be met to achieve performance level specified.

Note 2: Alarm data processed over10min samples on monthly basis.

Perform

ance

Level

Performance

Level

Description

Average

Alarms/ 10

min

Max Alarms / 10

min

% of hours more

than 30 alarms

5 Predictive <1 < 10 < 1%

4 Robust < 10 but > 1 < 100 but > 10 < 5% but > 1%

3 Stable < 10 but > 1 < 1000 but > 100 < 25%but> 5%

2 Reactive < 100 but > 10 > 1000 <50%but> 25%

1 Overloaded > 100 > 1000 > 50 %

No Manual

Exclusions

Allowed

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Ultimate ‘Goal’ set by the management in 2014Q1:

“ROBUST” in all 25nos. consoles for minimum 9 months /

year by end 2016.

Started multiple six sigma projects to work on new KPIs

Though we did not achieve the ultimate goal as per original

plan, we are consistently progressing and in the right path

to achieve it.

(Too many alarms due to FF bus- new technology, High

population of instruments, Nature of processes – solid

handling, Operating discipline.).

Progressive status presented in the next slide.

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YEAR 2014 2015 2016 2017

Targets All

consoles

‘‘STABLE’

by year

end

‘STABLE’

5months

‘ROBUST’

4months

‘‘STABLE’ 3 months

‘ROBUST’ 6 months

& relaxed for some

areas.

‘‘STABLE’ 3 months

‘ROBUST’ 9 months

& relaxed for some

reduced areas.

NOTES

1. Goals are incremental progressive.

2. Results are mixed, but encouraging.


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Target:

Min 6 months Robust

& 3 months Stable

Target:

Min 4 months Robust

& 5 months Stable

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Alarm System Performance – 2016 (Typical)

P1 C1 = Plant-1, Console-1…etc


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Journey - Improvement plan : Stage-4

In 2017, Over and above “ROBUST” target in

KPIs, we added another goal to reduce Stale

alarms.

(Stale alarms represents the standing alarm not

being attended for a long time).

Goal: Maximum 10 alarms of High and Urgent

(Emergency) priority standing for more than

7days. Annual Goal: achieve this for 36 weeks

out of 52 weeks.

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Alarm Management : Summary

Management Drive: Vision and support is essential for

success.

It is a journey over several years.

Alarm management program to be owned & lead by

operation - supported by other disciplines.

Meaningful alarms should not be removed to meet the

goal.

Efficient tools in DCS are of great help to meet targets.

Sustain performance is the key.

It pays off by higher plant safety ,Human reliability &

plant reliability.

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Questions??

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Thank you for listening

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