Addressing alarm flood situations in the process industries through alarm summary display design and alarm response strategy

Abstract Despite efforts to improve alarm systems, alarm flooding remains a significant problem in the process industries. Alarm summary displays for managing alarm floods do not fully support operator needs when responding to plant upsets. This Abnormal Situation Management Consortium ( asmconsortium.org ) funded study tested two alarm summary display designs in a simulated process control environment using twenty-four certified operators. The first display represented the traditional list-based alarm summary display typically used in control rooms. The second display was a new alarm tracker summary display, which showed alarms in a time series represented by icons and a short alarm description. Results of the simulated evaluation showed that when operators used a formal alarm response strategy that focused the new alarm tracker summary display by equipment area, they responded to more process events overall and had fewer false responses compared to when operators used the traditional list-based alarm summary. Relevance to industry New alarm summary displays can combine the benefits of list-based displays with time series presentation of alarm information. Process operators can be trained on formal alarm response strategies and should be given ample time to familiarize themselves with new displays as part of an effective deployment strategy.

[1]  D. C. Howell.  Fundamental Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences , 1985 .

[2]  Gyrd Skraaning,et al.  Can Human Operators and High-Level Automatic Systems Work Together? , 2010 .

[3]  Sirish L. Shah,et al.  Improved Correlation Analysis and Visualization of Industrial Alarm Data , 2011 .

[4]  Ratul Mahajan,et al.  CueT: human-guided fast and accurate network alarm triage , 2011, CHI.

[5]  K. J. Vicente,et al.  Cognitive Work Analysis: Toward Safe, Productive, and Healthy Computer-Based Work , 1999 .

[6]  Matthew Bransby.  DESIGN OF ALARM SYSTEMS , 2001 .

[7]  Mikko J. Rissanen,et al.  Evaluation of Parallel Coordinates for Interactive Alarm Filtering , 2011, 2011 15th International Conference on Information Visualisation.

[8]  C. T. Mattiasson.  The alarm system from the operator's perspective , 1999 .

[9]  Marcos R. S. Borges,et al.  Human factors approach for evaluation and redesign of human-system interfaces of a nuclear power plant simulator , 2008, Displays.

[10]  Sirish L. Shah,et al.  Graphical representation of industrial alarm data , 2010, IFAC HMS.

[11]  John M. O'Hara,et al.  Advanced Alarm Systems: Revision of Guidance and Its Technical Basis , 2000 .

[12]  Neville A. Stanton,et al.  Alarm-initiated activities: an analysis of alarm handlingby operators using text-based alarm systems in supervisory control systems , 1995 .

[13]  J. Noyes,et al.  Alarm systems: a guide to design, management and procurement , 1999 .

[14]  Ernesto A. Bustamante,et al.  The A-B Signal Detection Theory Model , 2007 .

[15]  Dal Vernon C. Reising,et al.  Human Performance Models for Response to Alarm Notifications in the Process Industries: An Industrial Case Study , 2004 .

[16]  H. J. G. Zwaga,et al.  Supervisory control behaviour and the implementation of alarms in process control , 1995 .

[17]  J. G. Hollands,et al.  Engineering Psychology and Human Performance , 1984 .

[18]  Heather A. Priest,et al.  Design, Delivery, and Evaluation of Training Systems , 2006 .