1. Operations Best Practices Program
2012 Gas Control Room Management
Best Practices Roundtable
CenterPoint Energy Headquarters
Houston, TX
October 23-25, 2012
Best Practices Summary – Group 2
Facilitator: Stacy Holub, CenterPoint Energy

2. ALARM MANAGEMENT

3. How do you actually manage the process of Alarm Management?
Challenge 1:
How do you actually manage the process of Alarm Management?

4. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Came up with a hard and fast rule. Identified the number of times that an alarm went out of the normal operating range. A nuisance alarm occurs more than 6 times in 30 minutes. Breakdown weekly report into acceptable and nuisance alarms. Follow-up with field staff to find out how the alarms were handled.
M. Hall, NiSource
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
Timeliness – Getting the alarms out to the field in a timely fashion.
Assurance – Reinforces feedback to the controllers that you are taking action on the alarms.

5. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Uses a system call Wonderware for SCADA. iWaf (integrated Web Application Framework) is embedded in Wonderware.
T. Shuck, Atmos Energy
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
Specific system for recording/documenting alarm related information.
Controllers can look at the report per shift and they look at high-high only.
Controllers can enter their comments into SCADA and manager reviews false.

6. How are companies defining Safety Related Alarms?
Challenge 2:
How are companies defining Safety Related Alarms?

7. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Engineering and Gas Control sit down and review all system points and determines if it affects safety or reliability.
T. Nodes, Xcel Energy
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
Teamwork across organization to identify what is safety-related and analysis of information to determine its effect on safety and reliability.
Able to provide customer with safe and reliable service.

8. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Sat down with the operations folks to identify what is a call-out or safety-related point. Highs and lows are alerts. High-highs (MAOP) and low-lows (contractor deliverability) are alarms.
M. Hall, NiSource
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
Teamwork and communication to identify safety-related alarms

9. Best Practice 3
Best Practice: Use rate of change (ROC) alarms on medium and high pressure systems as a warning for operators that a system change occurred.
B. Hoffman, UGI Utilities
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
ROC alarms provide a means to alert operators to potential line issues or ruptures.
If alarm limits are set close you may only get one ROC before a true alarm comes in.

10. Best Practice 4
Best Practice: Use a matrix of impacts vs. severity levels and if consequences of an unmanaged alarm could result in significant human or environmental impact (i.e., high level severity),then it is considered a safety-related alarm. This is built into their alarm rationalization process.
A. Millerick, Integrys Energy
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
It makes the alarm rationalization process less subjective with defined impacts and severity levels.

11. Challenge 3:
When there is field work going on that brings system/pipeline outside of normal operating conditions, how do you handle alarms? Do you delete existing alarms and create new alarms based on field conditions? If you do not inhibit alarm conditions used under normal conditions and they go into alarm, would these alarms count against the maximum allowable alarms per hour?

12. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: If we know someone is going out in the field to do some work, then the alarm is inhibited.
Do point to point verification on SCADA. Uses SCADA Lotus Notes. Perform “MOC” verification and everybody gets copied on it. Doing this for any calibration that takes 15-minutes average. They never delete existing alarms.
M. Hall, NiSource

13. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: With alarms that come into SCADA with engineering projects, they will change the limits to be able to track the procedure and ensure that any changes from the procedure will be captured by the system and alert the controller of a problem. If it’s construction, e.g. procedure for tie-in, they’ll drop the alarm limit.
T. Nodes, Xcel Energy

14. CHANGE MANAGEMENT

15. Challenge 1:
How are companies with multiple utilities within the corporate family who use a single, consolidated Control Center integrating the change management requirements of CRM?

16. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Told all centers to call Gas Control and communicate; easier than telling everyone in the field about all telemetry points. If there is no effect in the Control Center, then it only gets logged, not change management.
T. Baker, CenterPoint Energy (Gas Distribution)

17. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Management of change is considered a planned change. The form is sent out and multiple groups sign off on it. It is a corporate change process, not just Gas Control.
M. Hall, NiSource
Benefits/Considerations for Implementation:
Management of change should get incorporated into corporate standards.

18. Challenge 2:
What is the best way to encourage outside groups to notify the control room when field work is complete so that normal operating parameters (alarm configurations, for example) could be restored and change request ticket could be closed out? How do we handle non-cooperating groups?

19. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Went to the regional offices and explained new CRM rules and the changes and expectations. Response was well-received.
A. Redding, Consumers Energy

20. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Vital to bring Corporate into the changes that are occurring within the Control Room.
M. Hall, NiSource

21. Best Practice 3
Best Practice: Developing entire department dedicated to outage coordination.
K. Wirth, Enbridge Gas

22. Challenge 3:
How are companies determining the best way to document changes, big or small? What level of documentation is enough?

23. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Big Change = Management of Change. Small Change = SCADA Lotus Log. All logs can be chosen through one interface in Lotus Notes. Most will be in the SCADA log.
M. Hall, NiSource

24. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: If it goes past the log, then it goes into SharePoint and is considered change management.
T. Baker, CenterPoint Energy (Gas Distribution)

25. Best Practice 3
Best Practice: Everything is embedded into SCADA system. Logging done through same system as SCADA. Wonderware used as HMI.
T. Shuck, Atmos Energy

26. ADEQUATE INFORMATION

27. Challenge 1:
What are companies doing to educate their controllers on remote systems?

28. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: Send controller to field to learn what’s happening. They take pictures while they’re there for documentation. They have a network drive to upload the pictures. The pictures are tagged with description. Everyone can see what they did while they were on the field trip. They do a review of the field trip so the other controllers can see what’s going on in the field.
M. Hall, NiSource

29. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: We have buy-in from field managers. Field managers will come in to the Control Room and spend time with the controllers.
K. Wirth, Enbridge Gas

30. Best Practice 3 Best Practice: Create group screens.
T. Baker, CenterPoint Energy (Gas Distribution)

31. Challenge 2:
How are companies integrating point-to-point verification into their management of change (MOC) process?

32. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: MOC form with check box if point-to-point is required. Full point-to-point done if changes to RTU, SCADA. Meetings set up with measurement specialists and Gas Control.
J. Martin, CenterPoint Energy (Transmission)

33. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Field Personnel can do point-to-point and coordinate with Control Room.
R. Vallejo, Southwest Gas

34. Best Practice 3
Best Practice: Standardized form in SharePoint, re-commission point-to-point back into SCADA.
K. Wirth, Enbridge Gas

35. Challenge 3:
How do companies track or monitor whether controllers are correctly categorizing events (AOC, EOC, etc.) as they happen?

36. Best Practice 1
Best Practice: There is a difference between ‘Abnormal operation’ and ‘Abnormal operating condition’. An AOC may only be related to a technician. Volume Specific. Each state is different. We do it for both transmission and gathering systems.
J. Martin, CenterPoint Energy (Transmission)

37. Best Practice 2
Best Practice: Document the occurrence. See if controller fully documented the situation. Does not necessarily have them categorize the situation.
M. Hall, NiSource

38. Best Practice 3
Best Practice: Operator log is categorized and broken down into AOC or EOC categories. Log entry where you can choose and/or change category. Only related to Gas Control.
W. Rutledge, AGL Resources

39.
The American Gas Association, founded in 1918, represents more than 200 local energy companies that deliver clean natural gas throughout the United States. There are more than 71 million residential, commercial and industrial natural gas customers in the United States, of which 92% — more than 65 million customers — receive their gas from AGA members. Today, natural gas meets almost one-fourth of the United States’ energy needs.