ISA18 gets ready to do one final draft review prior to committee ballot

Here's a press release from ISA... and a question from me afterwards...



Widely Anticipated ISA Alarm Management Draft Nears Committee Ballot 


Research Triangle Park, NC (16 September 2008) – After evaluating a record 760 review comments from industry experts, the ISA18 standards committee on Instrument Signals and Alarms plans one final review cycle prior to submitting draft ISA-18.00.02 for committee ballot by the end of the year. 


The draft, "Management of Alarm Systems for the Process Industries," has been the main focus for the ISA18 committee this year – eliciting a whopping 2,500+ comments in the last 12 months from end users, vendors, and other process industry professionals. 


This outpouring of interest and input is no surprise to ISA18 co-chair Nick Sands of DuPont. "The processes and practices in this lifecycle approach to alarm management will benefit any process plant," he points out. "Implementation of the standard, when complete, will help users understand the elements of alarm management from philosophy and rationalization to monitoring and audit. The committee plans to issue technical reports with guidance on how to complete these activities." 


 


Now, here's my question. Why was ISA100.11a able to go through 2000+ comments in 98 days and be able to take the ISA100.11a Wireless Standard to a ballot when it has taken ISA18, under the  very able chairmanship of Nick Sands of DuPont (who, incidentally, serves as co-Managing Director of ISA100), a year to process "a whopping 2500+ comments" on alarm management? 

Or am I misunderstanding why ISA100.11a has moved to a full committee ballot? 


Inquiring minds want you all to think about this, and if you are a voter on ISA100, you might want to really really think about this.