Alarm Management MythBuster #4

This is the fourth and final myth in the series…

Myth #4:  Alarm Management requires endless Consulting Services

We’ve cleared up the most common myths –  about Counting Alarms, Reducing the Count and not needing a Philosophy and so now we’re at the last one (of the four most common ones anyway).

I guess this myth is propagated by vendors trying to sell their software to customers without any services.

I suppose it goes along with the other myths pretty well – but that’s about it.

While it is right to say that Consulting Services are not needed for each step of improving the performance of your alarm system, there is definite advantage to engaging an expert to help.

Involving an expert helps you get more value and get it faster.

Sure, you can develop your own philosophy, document and rationalize your own alarm system, and even set up real-time alarm functions to keep it all working right… it isn’t that difficult.

In fact, we encourage customers to could take The Workshop, read The Book, complete some basic Software Training and get started with their own Alarm Management projects.

The problem isn’t the skill required – the problem is the skills being available.

Remember, this is 2007 and there’s a huge shortage of qualified staff at most sites – probably including yours.

And that’s where the PAS Alarm Management Experts come in to help.

Our experts get the job done more effectively and efficiently than trying to find the time to do it yourself.  And the collective experience we hold from work at hundreds of sites brings real-life learnings and experiences of Alarm Management to your effort that just can’t be captured by any software.

So if you’re not sure of how much alarm management is worthwhile at your site and what effort is involved – try bringing in one of our experts to survey your site and define the benefits to your management.

Then think about what makes sense for you to do and what makes sense for the consultant to help out on.

You’ll be glad you did.

Because your management will see a faster and more solid return on investment than you’d ever achieve on your own.

And what about the myth of endless services?

Well, just ask any of our hundreds of customers – our services always end well before the return on investment does.

And that makes happy managers and satisfied shareholders.

And even happier employees!

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Comments

[andrew miller]

good series. did some work a long time ago when emua was just a draft and we tried two aproaches. one was basically a repeat of the HAZOP to weed out alarms. this was long and slow, but did give a step change to the performance.
the more effective and ongoing process was to incorporate the reports (top 10, standing alarms etc...) into the morning weekly performance meetings for each plant. This kept the process alive and embedded it into the plant operation, so maintenance, operations and planning worked together at the solution