IPL2 and 3 performance improvement method for process safety using event correlation analysis

Alarm management efforts have recently intensified, and many tools based on the guidelines in EEMUA 191 have been used to analyze alarm system performance at chemical sites. However, attempts to improve alarm systems using conventional methods have not made satisfactory progress, because they focused on evaluating current performance without providing information that would be useful for improving and rationalizing the alarm system. In this paper a novel method using event correlation analysis is proposed as a means of improving IPL2 and 3 performance, including alarm systems and operator actions. This method's effectiveness was evaluated with data from an alarm system improvement project at a chemical site.