Abstract
Alarm flooding occurs because of systemic overreliance on alarms and recurrent manpower shortage in control environments due to the relative unpredictability and scarcity of emergency states. As alarm technology has become cheaper, digitized, and more effective, its pervasiveness has increased. Organizations trying to reduce costs, human error, and manpower have taken to using more automated systems, more alarms and fewer operators. Such approaches are logical using a strict cost basis, but can lead to significant problems in cognitive loading and sensemaking when emergency states are triggered and alarm flooding occurs in any quintessential safety-critical system. The result of these trends has been a tendency towards more frequent alarm flooding. In this context, the primary author has a unique opportunity to develop a dissertation research project to address a once-in-a-generation challenge: addressing system design and implementation criteria for improved alarm designs for emerging technologies, including nuclear power plant control environments. This paper addresses technical and student development issues in developing a novel, unprecedented doctoral dissertation with significant application potential.
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