Abstract
This paper reports results of a study dealing with the ergonomic design quality of the alarm system and alarm management in 15 process control systems from different sectors of industrial production. Based on available guidelines and ergonomic evidence, a checklist was designed and applied to these systems to test for compliance with these guidelines. The results show that there is a great deal of non-compliance with the requirements, leading to severe impairments of process safety. The main areas of design deficiencies have been found in the lack of prioritization of alarms, a lack of action guides in the presentation of alarms, lack of continuous improvement of the alarm system, a lack of systematic training concepts and training of alarm handling. Feeding back the results to the companies involved clearly showed that they were looking for help in dealing with these problems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kemeny, J.G., Babbitt, B., Haggerty, P.E. et al.: Report of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island (1979). http://www.threemileisland.org/downloads/188.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2016
Health and Safety Executive (HSE): HSE Information Sheet, Chemicals Sheet No. 6. Better alarm handling (2000). http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/chis6.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2016
U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB): Investigation report: refinery explosion and fire (15 killed, 180 injured). BP, Texas City, Texas; March 23, 2005. Report no. 2005-04-I-TX, March 2007 (2007). http://www.csb.gov/bp-america-refinery-explosion. Accessed 20 Dec 2016
ANSI/ISA 18.2: Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries. ISA, Research Triangle Park (2009)
DIN EN 62682: Alarmmanagement in der Prozessindustrie, Beuth, Berlin (2013, 2016)
EEMUA 191: Alarm Systems. A Guide to Design, Management and Procurement. EEMUA, London (2013)
NA 102: Alarmmanagement. NAMUR, Leverkusen (2008)
YA-711: Principles for alarm system design. Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, Stavanger (2001)
Bransby, M.L., Jenkinson, J.: The Management of Alarm Systems. HSE Books, Sudbury (1998)
Ivergård, T., Hunt, B. (eds.): Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics: A Perspective for the Future. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2009)
Hollifield, B.R., Habibi, E.: Das Alarmmanagement- Handbuch. Eine umfassende Anleitung. Nino Druck GmbH, Neustadt (2012)
Bockelmann, M., Nickel, P., Nachreiner, F.: Development of an Online Checklist for the Assessment of Alarm Systems and Alarm Management in Process Control. Springer, Heidelberg (2017, in press)
Bockelmann, M.: Entwicklung und Überprüfung eines Prototyps eines Instrumentes zur Beurteilung und Optimierung des Gestaltungszustandes von Alarmsystemen – eine Machbarkeitsstudie (unpublished diploma thesis). Carl von Ossietzky Universität, Oldenburg (2009)
Bockelmann, M., Schütte, M., Nachreiner, F.: Entwicklung und Überprüfung eines Prototyps eines Instrumentes zur Beurteilung und Optimierung des Gestaltungszustandes von Alarmsystemen – Ergebnisse einer Machbarkeitsstudie. In: Gesellschaft für Arbeitswissenschaft (ed.) Neue Arbeits- und Lebenswelten gestalten, pp. 905–908. GfA-Press, Dortmund (2010)
Health and Safety Executive (HSE): Human Factors Briefing Note No. 9. Alarm Handling (n.d.). http://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/09alarms.pdf. Accessed 20 Dec 2016
VDI/VDE 3699-5: Prozessführung mit Bildschirmen – Alarme/Meldungen, Beuth, Berlin (2014)
Acknowledgments
The research for the study was partly funded by Forschungsgesellschaft für angewandte Systemsicherheit und Arbeitsmedizin e.V. (FSA) [http://www.fsa.de/en/home/].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bockelmann, M., Nickel, P., Nachreiner, F. (2018). The Design of Alarm Systems and Alarm Management - An Empirical Investigation from an Ergonomic Perspective. In: Arezes, P. (eds) Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 604. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60525-8_52
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60525-8_52
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60524-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60525-8
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)