Safety can be alarming
I just read an interesting article in the September issue of InTech titled "Operators on alert". It covers the controversial issue around how much safety credit (i.e. risk reduction) can be given to an operator's response to an alarm.
This article does a nice job of describing how the functional safety standard (ANSI/ISA 84) and the alarm management standard (ANSI/ISA 18.2) can be used in cooperation to help one derive the overal effectiveness an operator can have on his safety performance
You can read the entire article at
www.isa.org/intech/20090901