Matching alarm systems to people

Alarm systems play an important role in maintaining the safe operation of process plants. However, the usability of many existing alarm systems is poor. This can result in critical events being missed by the plant operator, and there have been several cases of this contributing to major plant accidents. The paper examines the purpose of an alarm system. It identifies shortcomings in the approaches commonly taken to the design of alarm systems and suggests how the usability of alarm systems might be increased