Posts by mycontrolroom

By Ian Nimmo and Stephen Maddox | Aug 18, 2015 Summary: A well-written alarm management philosophy defines procedures that allow your team to get alarms under control now and for the long haul. Alarm management seems to be a never-ending task: company X hires consultant Y to repair their badly designed and overloaded alarm management…

API 754 Using Human Factors to Improve Process Safety Following the recommendations of the Baker report into the BP Texas City incident two (2) new American Petroleum Institute (API) recommended practices were published. One of these dealt with the subject of fatigue risk management and the other, the subject of this paper, process safety performance…

In today’s competitive environment, all plants are interested in reducing costs to maximize profitability. One fixed-expense area most frequently targeted is hourly staffing level. If one duty station can be eliminated in a plant that operates 24 hours a day, head count can be reduced by at least four full-time employees. Taking into account salary,…

Many managers and company executives are focusing on achieving company goals and objectives. The automation system and the control room operators significantly impact the business. Bottom line: control room operators are the first line of defense during abnormal situations, if they detect problems in time, they can reduce costs. How well they perform is dependent…

2015 has started strong with a lot of new opportunities. As usual, this time of year David volunteers to head north and enjoy some snow on the ground, while I stay in Phoenix and enjoy the 80 degree weather; well-done Dave. He also spent a week in Houston doing some High Performance HMI work. I…

Alarm Management is one of the control room systems that affect operator performance, but there is a bigger picture. When we look at downtime, we need to think about why we have operators in the control room and ask: are they effective at mitigating and managing abnormal situations? Are they performing at maximum level? Can…

Happy New Year to all our friend’s and clients! Who knows what this year will bring as we start the year with falling oil prices and low fuel costs which helps many businesses but often leads to loss of work for an organization like ours.  We have been through a few of these turns over…

Alarm Management is one of the control room systems that effect operator performance but there is a bigger picture. When we look at down time, we need to think about why we have operators in the control room and ask, are they effective at mitigating and managing abnormal situations? Below is an example of the…

Webinar – Alarm Management Per the New IEC62682 Standard (New Rationalization Method) The recent IEC 62682 Standard lays out a business procedure for the lifetime management of process alarms: You should attend this webinar if: Your plant is planning or considering an alarm rationalization project to ensure it complies with the new Standard. This may…

Where did the year go?  I am sorry I didn’t manage to keep blogging all year.  I guess you understand when everything gets busy some things get dropped, not because they are not important, but other things like customers and projects take the priority. Dave and I just returned from New Zealand.  We were there…

Fatal Chemical Release Killed Thousands in Bhopal, India. Video Below: CSB Safety Message Warns it Could Happen Again, more Must be Done to Improve Process Safety Regulations in the U.S. to Prevent the Next Accident from Occurring. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released a short video safety message marking the 30th anniversary of history’s…

Operational Excellence (where do we start) Many organizations have appointed a leader to initiate an operation excellence philosophy and the first thing they discover, improving operational excellence is one of the most crucial challenges facing CEOs across the globe. Indeed, multiple pressures – competition, more stringent regulation as well as investor and stakeholder expectations –…