CP321a Water Industry Alarm Systems Improvement Group (2010 - 2011)
Alarm management is a critical business function. Alarm systems are an important tool in mitigating risk and meeting increasing obligations to health and safety, customers, the environment and business efficiency. As water utilities continue to move to more centralised, proactive, real-time management of operations, the need for effective and reliable alarm system performance has never been greater. Alarm systems also increasingly provide key inputs to asset and work management.
In 2008, WRc started a Portfolio collaborative project CP321 that reviewed current practice in the water and waste industry with reference to The Engineering Equipment & Materials Users' Association (EEMUA) Publication 191 (Alarm Systems - A Guide to Design, Management and Procurement) which is widely recognised as the leading benchmark of best practice in industrial alarm systems. It was concluded that the industry would benefit from a more coherent and rigorous framework for alarm system design and management. As a result, project CP321A, Water Industry Alarm Systems Improvement Group (WASIG) was established in 2009 as a cost-effective way of moving forward and continuing the collaborative approach.
WASIG has provided a valuable forum for sharing information on alarm systems, and on the means of achieving improvements. The Group has worked together to develop and to consider generic methods for risk assessment and classification of alarm criticality. The Group has also established a close link with EEMUA and is contributing to the latest revision of Publication 191, raising the profile of the water industry in this important area.
Further work to develop best practice and standards is planned for 2010-2011; topics to be addressed include standardisation/harmonisation of alarm requirements for generic processes/assets, advanced alarm detection methods, use of more sophisticated alarm processing techniques, e.g. dynamic alarming, alarm suppression and automatic alarm shedding for alarm flood situations, and developments in intelligent operator support.
Going forward, the Group will be further developed to provide a practical forum that will provide a showcase for innovative vendor products and trends in associated technologies and establish consensus on new challenges affecting alarm system management.