Development of an online checklist for the assessment of alarm systems and alarm management in process control

Abstract

In the past, poorly designed alarm systems and inadequate alarm management contributed to the emergence of critical events with partially serious consequences. Based on the experience gained from these incidents, guidelines were created with recommendations for the design of alarm systems and alarm management. A comprehensive checklist has been developed to analyze the current design quality of alarm systems and alarm management and has been used in various control rooms across different branches of industry in Germany. Using the checklist, design deficiencies can be identified and action needs can be derived. So far, the results also show systematic differences in the application of the checklist between individual assessors and between groups of assessors.