Plant Management
Fig. 1. Operations monitoring tools can be used to systematically monitor process plant performance and summarise any deviations from the operating plan.
just respond to alarms throughout the shift. Alarm rationalisation involves reconciling individual alarms against the principles and requirements of the alarm philosophy. It is important that the relevant data for each alarm is documented to support the other stages of the lifecycle. This includes the alarm description, settings, causes of an alarm, consequence of no action, required operator action, response time, consequence rating, and so on. A properly designed and well functioning alarm system is imperative to operational excellence initiatives, but it is not enough to simply operate within alarm boundaries. Operations managers need to know if units are running in a range that will assure production plans are met while staying within limits, which include (but are not limited to) equipment constraints, economic targets, environmental standards, safety system regulations and advanced process control strategies. Many automated industrial plants
have now implemented some type of operations monitoring programme. These programmes provide the tools for an operations department to establish and manage engineering limits and constraints, monitor performance to plan and limits, and to follow-up on performance problems.
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Operations monitoring is meant to address questions such as:
n Are operating plans being met? n What are the safety, process, design, reliability and environmental limits, and are these limits in effect consistently? n If plans or limits are being violated, why? n How can process performance and unit reliability be improved?
In many cases, operations monitoring programmes make use of ad-hoc or standalone tools, such as spreadsheet applications or a combination of email and printed reports, to evaluate process variables against operating limits, conduct plant data analysis and perform stewardship reporting. Because personal spreadsheets
are generally not subject to the same rigid control standards as other IT applications, errors and omissions can occur, impacting the accuracy of information used to develop planning targets and identify environmental constraints. Without a central data repository, different individuals may apply different data as the basis for reporting and decisions. Spreadsheets may also limit access to daily operating information for the rest of the organisation.
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