Abnormal Situation Management
The Abnormal Situation Management Consortium The Abnormal Situation Management - ASM® Consortium is a Research and Development Consortium founded in 1994 by Honeywell to address customer concerns about the high cost of incidents at their plants such as unplanned shutdowns, fires, explosions, emissions, etc. It aims to identify problems facing industrial plant operations during abnormal conditions, and to develop solution concepts. Deliverables include products and services, guideline and other documents, and information-sharing workshops; all incorporating ASM knowledge. Abnormal Situation Management, like general emergency management, is achieved through Prevention, Early Detection, and Mitigation of abnormal situations, thereby reducing unplanned outages, process variability, fires, explosions and emissions that are reducing profits and putting plant employees and local residents at risk.
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[edit] What is an Abnormal Situation?
A disturbance or series of disturbances in a process that cause plant operations to deviate from their normal operating state. The nature of the abnormal situation may be of minimal or catastrophic consequence. It is the job of the operations team to identify the cause of the situation and execute compensatory or corrective actions in a timely and efficient manner. A disturbance may cause a reduction in production; in more serious cases it may endanger human life. Abnormal situations extend, develop, and change over time in the dynamic process control environments increasing the complexity of the intervention requirements.[1]
[edit] Sources of abnormal situations
The research of ASM® Consortium has confirmed three principal sources of abnormal situation.[2]
[edit] Process
Process factors account for an average 22% of incidents. It includes process complexity, types of materials and manufacturing- Batch Process or Continuous Process, state of operation - Steady State or startups, shutdowns and transitions.
[edit] Equipment
Equipment factors count for an average 36% of incidents. This category includes degradation and failures in the process equipment, such as pumps, compressors and furnaces, and failures in the control equipment, such as sensors, valves and controllers.
[edit] People
People factors accounts for 42% of incidents. The influences on this factor are the training, skill and experience levels of the operations teams and their stress levels when situations reach alarm conditions. As well, the organisational structure, communications, environment and documented procedures and practices or lack thereof, play a role in operator response.
The ASM® Consortium focuses its R&D on the People Element or the Human Factors to avoid and respond to abnormal situations.
[edit] ASM® Consortium Members
Members of the consortium include a wide range of Industrial manufacturers, vendors, and universities. There are three types of membership - User Members from the refining, petrochemical and specialty chemical industries, Associate Members providing human centered design consulting; management consulting, training, and development; and control building architecture and design, University Members providing links into the academic research community.[3]
[edit] Mission of ASM® Consortium
Operating teams empowered and enabled to proactively manage their plants to maximize safety and minimize environmental impact while allowing the processes to be pushed to their optimal limits. The ASM Consortium promotes their vision by conducting research, testing and evaluating solutions that develop and advance the collective knowledge of the members, and by directing development of tools, best practices, and services that facilitate the conversion of ASM® knowledge into practice.[4]
[edit] Reference
[edit] External links
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