Grant: Engage Grants Program

Alarm systems are at the heart of any safety system. A well designed and calibrated alarm system can detectany abnormal situation in the plant early on, enunciate the abnormality, and reduce the number and severity ofabnormal situations. The goal of this research is to determine the root cause of alarm overload in a Crude Unitof a petroleum refinery, and implement advanced alarm management system to improve the safety, reliabilityand productivity of the unit. Risk based and event based alarm management system will be implemented on thecrude unit of the refinery. Besides making the plant safe and sustainable, it is estimated that through reductionof abnormal situations the refinery can save directly about CAD 3 MM per year. It addition to benefiting theplant directly, this project will contribute significantly to technology development. The new generation alarmmanagement system has the potential to be developed as a marketable product both home and abroad, thuscontribute to the Canadian economy. Finally, the newly developed alarm management tool will make processindustries safer, and save lives.