I was at a mixed-company training a while back. There were companies there who used software from various vendors, and had solution projects performed by the same, and a greater mixture of "alarm management newbies"- i.e. those only recently addicted/afflicted. The question of ROI for alarm management came up. The Newbies wanted to know how the experienced ones evaluated ROI for the effort.

The comment from a battle-scarred veteran was "Yes- our management is asking that same question. They want to know what they have received back for the $x Million (it was a shocking number) they've invested in all of these rationalizations, etc. They noticed that the control room seemed a bit quieter, but they still saw the same shut-downs and plant upsets as before."

Their answer to management was that they wanted to work with the same vendor who had not yet solved their problem to invent plant state estimators, and develop a smart alarming system. WARNING Will Robinson! Aliens approaching. Be careful of what these aliens promise you. You'll be stuck with the result, and they'll exigrate back to their home land. Management's response back was "You mean we haven't already got that for what we've paid?" I repeat my mantra. You ain't seen an alarm flood until you've seen a smart alarm flood. As a veteran with battle scars in that area, I've seen too many brilliant people wreck their ships on those shoals to bet that a service provider is going to resolve this problem.

Don't take this wrong- the vendor they hired did just as promised, and did a good job of rationalizing their alarm system. Its just that at the end of that alarm rationalization rainbow, the leprechaun didn't have the pot of gold they'd hoped for. This is not necessarily the service vendor's fault (though promises were PROBABLY made to get the project started). It should have been obvious that a simple rationalization could not solve the problems that made the system get bad to start with- after all , it didn't change any processes, just an underlying configuration.

Again- a warning. This alarm management stuff is NOT rocket science, and reducing alarms is not the end resolution of your problems. Alarms are the automation backstop of the plant, and thus the best indicator of your problems. But, other than nuisance alarms which are easily dispatched, the real bottlenecks lie elsewhere. So, perhaps you can save all that rationalization money and invest it instead in the bottlenecks your alarm system is pointing to. Upgrade your control room. Redo your graphics. Increase your maintenance interval. Install better communications. These (and their cousins) are usually the root cause of alarm problems.

So- lets take this smart alarming thought process a step further- because I've been there and done that. Suppose you and I- with our vast intelligence- sat in a room and came up with every possible scenario the plant might face, and designed an expert system that would automate the plant through and past each problem. Well, guess what- we'd miss. And the ones that caught us would be the no-brainers that we were too smart to think of. We used to say that the solutions we offered didn't solve the problem, but only confused you more than before. However, we felt you were confused on a higher level and about more important things.

Alright- where is the ROI on alarm management? Actually, it's pretty easy, and it has to come from operations. How many times have you lost a pump, and how much did it cost? If you can avoid a lost pump due to a clearer message, what does it save? The answer to this question lies in benchmarking pre- and post-alarm management effort. Problem here is- if I do prevent a lost pump, how can I claim that savings if I don't know whether it would have happened otherwise? I cannot run parallel timelines and see what happens in another universe with different decisions...

So, let me help you get true ROI out of your alarms management investment. Don't bite off too much too quickly. Put the measurement tools and benchmarks in place up front. Let the data tell you where your problems lie. If you have a problem that can be solved by alarm rationalization, analysis of the data will indicate that. If your problems lie elsewhere, analysis of the data will indicate that. But don't put the cart before the horse. Don't spend $5Million on rationalization exercises that will produce no measurable effect. If you've got $5Million to spend, let the data point you to where your problems lie.

I suspect you'll learn that your alarm data will point you to several areas that seem obvious once you've seen the data. Oh- and stop looking at alarm management as an ROI exercise- it's NOT. It's really a RISK MANAGEMENT exercise. You should be looking at the dollars you are putting at risk by NOT optimizing your alarm system. This is always the scarier side of this equation, but infinitely more realistic. We'll have more articles dealing with this issue in the future.