Celebrating twenty years abnormality!

This year the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM®) Consortium  is celebrating 20 years of thought leadership in the process industry. The ASM Consortium grew out of a grassroots effort begun in 1989 by ASM to address alarm floods. Honeywell spearheaded the development of a proposal to the US NIST, Advanced Technology Program to form a Joint Research & Development Consortium.

Background on the ASM ConsortiumThe ASM Consortium was started in 1994 to address Process Industry concerns about the high cost of incidents, such as unplanned shutdowns, fires, explosions, emissions, etc. The term, Abnormal Situation Management®, was used to describe it. Matching funds from NIST enabled the consortium to spend several years researching and developing highly-advanced concepts to address the problem of abnormal situations. Since then research has continued and increasing effort has been put into development and deployment of solutions that incorporate ASM knowledge.The basis of the ASM Consortium is collaboration and information-sharing. By working together, members achieve far more than they could working alone. Research results are published for members, and often further shared by means of webinars, seminars and workshops. User members also guide Honeywell in selection and development of product solutions that incorporate ASM knowledge. Non-members can benefit from ASM Research as ASM Effective Practices Guidelines for Alarm Management, Display Design and Procedural Practices are available for purchase on Amazon.com.

The proposal addressed the challenging problem of abnormal situation management. In preparing for this proposal effort, Honeywell and its collaborators created the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Joint Research and Development Consortium (referred to as ASMC) under the U.S. Cooperative Research and Development Act. In November 1994, the ASM research joint venture began its research with $16.6 million (€12.27m) in funding for a three year study program, including $8.1 million (€6m) from ATP and industry cost-sharing of $8.5 million (€6.29m).

This year, ASM Consortium members have met twice for a week-long Quarterly Review Meetings (QRM) , once at Houston, Texas (USA) in April and then again at Antwerp (B) in June. Along with its normal business, the Consortium discussed plans to celebrate the Consortium’s 20 year of service to the Process Industry. The Quarterly Review Meetings are a platform for the ASM Consortium members to share the benefits gained from the ASM practices and products, and to discuss new challenges faced in plant operations. Members of the Consortium besides Honeywell include industrial manufacturers, a human factors research company, and universities that collaborate to research best practices for managing abnormal situations in industrial facilities.

To celebrate its 20th year, ASM Consortium will be spreading further awareness about managing and mitigating abnormal situations in process industries by publishing journal articles, white papers at leading industry conferences, and a planned video.