Alarm floods and plant incidents

Most of the incident investigations performed by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) cite alarm floods as being a significant contributing cause to industrial incidents. In fact, alarm management has become identified as one of the key issues listed on the cover of recent CSB investigation reports. The British-based organisation Engineering Equipment & Materials Users’ Association (EEMUA) came to the same finding in its report from 1999 when it analysed major incidents around the world, including Three Mile Island, Bhopal and Texaco Milford Haven.¹ Therefore, the connection of alarm floods to incidents has been well documented for over 12 years. On the whole, industrial progress controlling floods in those 12 years has been nil. Many corporations and plant locations are attempting to do so, but many engineers, including alarm management vendors, do not know what it takes to control floods under all operating conditions. This article shows examples of good alarm management programmes and how they successfully control alarm floods under all operating conditions.

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