The Continuous Improvement of Safety and Reliability at ConocoPhillips

1
The Continuous Improvement of Safety and
Reliability at ConocoPhillips
2
Presenter Karim Moti

• Over 10 years of experience in Process
  Optimization
• Alarm Management, Information Management, and
  KPI's for business
• Graduate of University of Alberta, Bachelor
  Chemical Engineering degree, specialization in
  Computer Process Control

3
Safety and Reliability

• Setting Expectations Safety First
• Safety is everyones responsibility
• Improving Reliability
• Improving operational excellence via increased
  reliability is a common theme in Fortune 500
  companies
• Directed to both operations and equipment
  maintenance
• Improved Reliability will result in
• Reduced downtime ltimproves productivity gt
• Reduced abnormal situations ltreduces safety
  risksgt
• Reduced equipment damage ltimproves profitability
  gt

4
Safety and Reliability

• How to improve?
• Many ways to improve Safety and Reliability
  separately
• Alarm Management is a single initiative that
  addresses both safety and reliability together
• a continuous improvement initiative
• Not strictly the domain of process/control
  engineers in today's complex world
• Alarm Management is a cornerstone initiative of
  a plants and enterprises compliance and asset
  management plan

5
Plant Management and Operation
Aspects of plant operation overlay and impact one
another
Processes support these areas
6
Plant Management and Operation
The Alarm Management process supports
7
What is Alarm Management?
The Image The Reality
.What is the goal? Alarm Systems will be
designed, procured and managed so as to deliver
the right information, in the right way and at
the right time for action by the Control Room
Operator to avoid, and if not to minimize, plant
upset, asset or environmental damage, and to
improve safety

• .What goes wrong?
• Floods of alarms during plant upsets
• Long lists of standing alarms during normal
  operation
• Upsets/incidents due to missed alarms

8
Alarm Management

• No longer are EHS projects treated as total
  non-discretionary investment but as potential
  return projects
• Legislation can certainly force companies to
  invest
• Alarm Management programs deliver hard benefits
  through
• optimized staffing,
• reduced insurance premiums
• improved process up-time and
• problem identification ltpreventative and
  faster post-audit investigationsgt

9
Alarm Management

• Alarms from your plant systems, ltcontrol and
  equipmentgt identify process problems that are
  reducing your profit
• Alarms suggest variability or tuning problems
• Indication of asset issues
• Potential operator training/knowledge issues
• Studies show that facilities experience 3 8 in
  production losses due to abnormal situations each
  year (EEMUA/ASM)

10
Alarm Management

• The insurance industry spends 22B/y on equipment
  damage claims and is now forcing facilities to
  implement alarm mgmt solutions
• The Health Safety Executive (HSE) is also
  cracking down by making alarm management a
  precondition of extending or granting a facility
  its operating licence

11
Alarm Management

• You cannot manage what you cannot measure,
• Business icon, Peter F. Drucker.
• And no place is this statement more relevant than
  in the process industry
• Method
• Alarm Management Systems which provide Alarm
  Performance Indicators that benchmark and measure
  best-in-class alarm attributes
• These in turn can be compared against other sites
  to understand the relative performance and to
  identify to management any opportunities for
  improvement

12
Engineering Support

• Integrate alarmevents data with process data
  directly in the historian toolset
• Reduce time and effort in troubleshooting process
  upsets
• Provide a simple pointclick grid interface for a
  consolidated view of all information

13
Maintenance Support

• Better focus maintenance staff on key issues.
  Alarms and events help to identify
• DCS integrity alarms
• Track and verify interlocks, safety alarms
  requiring routine test
• Identify and track transmitter errors
• Via operator actions identify problematic valves
  and control problems
• Integration into Predictive Maintenance Program
  
• Vibration Monitoring, Heater Skin Temps

14
Optimize Resource Allocation

• Traditional data (operator loop count) are poor
  metrics for optimizing staffing
• AlarmEvents database contains the information
  required to best assess and optimize DCS operator
  staffing
• Impact on Operator attrition
• Control room consolidation
• New Unit integration
• Continuously monitor progress

Operations Management
Support manpower decisions with hard data!
15
Environmental, Health and Safety

• Compliance Reporting
• Quickly identify and troubleshoot
  Environmental/Safety Alarms
• Provide secure database for post-audit analysis
• Integration with Enforcement and Assist tools

EHS
Simplify and Enforce Compliance Reporting
16
Quick Hit Reports / Analysis
17
Shift Relief Reports
18
Operator Assist Documentation
19
(No Transcript)
20
Alarm System Performance Goals
Industry
Borger
Borger
Average Alarmsper Hour
of time above Ave Alarm Rate
0
5
6
Average Alarms/ 10 Minute Interval
Average Stale Alarms
0
1
1
Peak Alarmsper Minute
Discrepancies/ Mismatches
0
2
2
Peak Alarms Per Hour
Disabled / Inhibited Alarms
0
15
15
55-80 14-35 5-10
80 15 5
Distribution (Low/Med/High)
Alarms Configured To controller count
2.51
21
Where is industry at?

• A few well defined consortiums
• ASM, EEMUA, coming ISA RP18.x
• OSHA, ISO, FDA, insurance requirements
• Thought leaders and practitioners
• Widely adopted and proven benefits in Oil, Gas,
  Petrochemicals. Accepted as fundamental and
  corporate strategies by ConocoPhillips as well as
  some of the other majors ExxonMobil, Shell,
  Aramco, NOVA Chem, etc.

22
Where is the Value in AlarmEvents Data?
AlarmEvents data is the hub in the value wheel
23
Conclusions

• The key is managing the process of alarm
  management and not the alarms
• Workflow changes and management visibility are
  keys to successful Alarm Management
• People need to incorporate the tools and metrics
  into day to day workflow
• Continuous improvement process for safety and
  reliability of refining facilities