After 6 years of work, the new standard “ANSI/ISA-18.2-2009 Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries” is now available at www.isa.org! This is a consensus standard developed per stringent methods that make it a “recognized and generally accepted good engineering practice” from the regulatory point of view. Dozens of contributors participated in the development of 18.2, including PAS as a voting member.
For many years, PAS has been supplying software, performing consulting services, and advocating practices that ANSI/ISA18.2 now validates and embodies. Because of our industry experience, our work practices and 3rd-generation software specifically address many of the requirements and recommendations of ANSI/ISA 18.2.
The issuance of 18.2 is a significant and important event for the chemical, petrochemical, refining, power generation, pipeline, mining and metals, pharmaceutical, and other industries! ANSI/ISA18.2 is quite different from the “usual” ISA standard. It is not about specifying how some sort of hardware talks to other hardware, or the detailed design of control components. It is about work processes of people. Alarm management isn’t really about hardware or software; it’s about work practices (poorly performing alarm systems do not create themselves!)
ANSI/ISA18.2 provides both mandatory and recommended basic alarm management work practices, presented in a “life cycle” framework. The life cycle has 10 stages: Alarm Philosophy, Identification, Rationalization, Detailed Design, Implementation, Operation, Maintenance, Monitoring & Assessment, Management of Change, and Audit.
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Three years ago PAS published The Alarm Management Handbook, which provided a proven 7-step methodology for creating or improving an alarm system. The ISA book division, not having a great text on alarm management, read it and then arranged with us to republish it (with minor changes) as Alarm Management: 7 Effective Methods for Optimum Performance. There is no conflict between the PAS 7-step approach and the 18.2 “Life Cycle” methodology– there is only different nomenclature and task arrangement. PAS will soon release a comprehensive paper on understanding and interpreting 18.2 – because some of the nomenclature and wording it has is written in “standard-speak” rather than common English!
There are several common misconceptions about standards! Standards intentionally describe /blogs/2008/isa_am_handbook.aspx)
the “minimum acceptable,” and not the optimum. By design, standards do not have detailed or specific “how-to” guidance. ANSI/ISA 18.2 does not contain examples of specific proven methodologies or of detailed practices such as are in the Handbook. And, readers of the Handbook should not expect to learn much that is basically “new or different” from reading 18.2. The committee is now working on creating additional explanatory information in follow-on “ISA Technical Reports.” This should approach some of the detailed content already existing in the Handbook. So to that end, if you are adopting the new ANSI/ISA 18.2, make sure to also get a copy of The Alarm Management Handbook as an essential companion guide to help you better understand and implement the standards.
PAS will continue to lead in Operator Effectiveness, which includes effective alarm systems, High-Performance HMIs (see The High Performance HMI Handbook) , and control loop optimization. Keep watching, new things are coming…
And watch this blog for further information on this important new standard!