Control Room Improvements

Integrating the Control Room into the Incident Mitigation Management Process

Chad Zamarin, NiSource

Incident Mitigation Management

If our worst fear happens and we have a pipeline rupture, how can we improve our ability to mitigate the consequences?

• Defined criteria and standards

• Planned and coordinated emergency response plans

• Priorities for automating valves

• Training to improve situational awareness and incident detection

• Effective communication, pre-planning, training and drills

Institutionalizing these and other best practices into everything we do – including our control room processes

Control Room Management (CRM)

• PHMSA stated purpose is to “…reduce the number and consequences of shortfalls… …when remotely monitoring and controlling pipelines and responding to abnormal and emergency conditions.”

An operator’s view of CRM…

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An integrated plan and process that brings together…

• Roles & Responsibilities for controllers during normal, abnormal and emergency conditions as well as during shift change

• Adequate Information for controllers including tools, processes and procedures

• Fatigue Mitigation including shift length optimization and fatigue education for controllers and supervisors

• Alarm Management including review of off-scan or inhibited alarms, alarm set points and controller activity

• Change Management when implementing physical changes to equipment, pipeline hydraulics or during emergency conditions

• Lessons Learned from operating experience and from the review of incidents

• Training for each controller to carry out their defined roles and responsibilities

• Records demonstrating Compliance and justifying Deviations

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An operator’s plan…

1. Introduction

2. Gas Control/Monitoring Center Processes

3. Communication Plan

4. SCADA

5. Alarm Management Plan

6. Abnormal Operating Conditions

7. Emergency Response

8. Management of Change

9. Quality Assurance & Performance Measures

10. Training, Qualification & Certification

11. Recordkeeping

12. Definitions & Terms

13. Regulatory Cross Reference Table

… can be the foundation for Control Room integration into the IMM Process

An operator’s view of CRM…

CRM and IMM (yep, it even rhymes)

Key control room functions for incident mitigation

• Remote Operations & Analysis

• Training & Communications

• Alarm Management & Abnormal Operating Conditions

• Incident Recognition & Response

CRM and IMM (yep, it even rhymes)

Remote Operations & Analysis

• Control Room as the information hub

• Analyze myriad of disparate data

SCADA

Operations input

Phone calls

News Reports

Etc.

• Key Challenge: what information is needed to determine that an incident has occurred and who makes the call?

…the situational awareness challenge…

Situational Awareness

…the situational awareness challenge… *Endsley, 1988

Awareness in the Control Room

…the situational awareness challenge…

Poor Situational Awareness

CRM and IMM (yep, it even rhymes)

Training & Communications

• Controller training on incident mitigation management

Roles and Responsibilities

Controller systems and tools

Shift change and fatigue management

Recognizing incidents

• The communication hub

Facilitating internal and external communication

Identification of key external communication forums

Testing of communications systems and processes

CRM and IMM (yep, it even rhymes)

Alarm Management & Abnormal Operating Conditions

• Establishment of safety related alarms and alarm set points

• Formal response to alarms and alerts

• Testing and protocols for communications loss

• Procedures for responding to abnormal operations

• Ongoing review of alarms and abnormal operations

CRM and IMM (yep, it even rhymes)

Incident Recognition & Response

• Recognizing an incident and facilitating the response

• Roles and responsibilities in responding to an incident

• Implementation of a backup control center

• Initiation and facilitation of incident response

Implementation of incident command structure

Field Operations incident response

Coordination with emergency responders

Business continuity

Agency and stakeholder alignment

Market impact mitigation and restoration of service

Control Room – Key takeaways

IMM is an orchestra

The control room is the string section

The control room is the information hub

The CRM can be a key platform for institutionalizing IMM

Key needs to fully support IMM

Design for Situational Awareness

Communication Processes

Incident Recognition and Response