Nuisance Alarms and the Boy Who Cried Wolf – How to Create a Happy Ending

Operator response to an alarm is the first line of defense (protection layer) to prevent a hazard from escalating to an incident. Nuisance (false) alarms desensitize operators to their importance, causing alarms to be ignored. This compromises the reliability of alarms as protection layer. Aesop’s fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” can be used to reinforce key alarm management principles from ISA-18.2; alarms should only be used to indicate an abnormal situation when an operator’s response is required to prevent a consequence. The story also illustrates what can happen when nuisance alarms are not taken seriously.

This presentation will discuss human factors elements that impact an operator’s reaction to nuisance alarms referencing level overflow / loss of primary containment (LOPC) case studies where nuisance alarms were a contributing factor. It will review how nuisance alarms negatively impact situation awareness via attention tunneling, errant mental models, and misplaced salience. It will also provide techniques for addressing nuisance alarms. Finally, a five-minute lego video “The Story of the Sump Pump Nuisance Alarm” will be used to summarize and reinforce the key points of the presentation.