Ian Nimmo

What a great January!  I must first thank Texas A&M University and the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering Department, who honored me by allowing me to give the keynote address at the 65th Instrument Symposium.  They then gave me a special luncheon with guests, this was very humbling and I was very grateful.  They also gave me a very nice plaque for my office.

I presented a paper on the Safety, Automation and Other Systems that need to be integrated at the Operator desktop.  Today, we have a tendency to treat these separately and in fact provide multiple styles and many inconsistencies in the Operator HMI.

I see no reason and only disadvantage if the history system is providing HMI overview information and the color scheme is not coordinated with the automation system HMI.  The SIS has no HMI and is dependent on the automation system for status overview and diagnostic information but again the displays are not coordinated in the same style as the automation system HMI.  A copy of my paper is available on our website.

Alarm Management

Robin Brooks & Timothy Triplett talked on “Logical Rationale of Alarm Rationalization” at the Texas A&M Instrumentation Symposium, a similar paper that I commented on in December, it was very well received.  The software is very interesting and worth checking out (http://www.curvaceous.com/).  It is a natural complement to your historian and alarm management rationalization tools like the LogMate® Alarm Management Software.  See their website http://www.tipsweb.com/humanmachineinterface/ .

The TiPS Inc. tool is the best tool in the marketplace and they are one of the easiest companies to work with.  I highly recommend it.  People often ask me about their recent alarm rationalization project because they are unsatisfied with the results and the economic payback.  I always guide them back to first principles – good situation awareness, a sound alarm philosophy and the right tools that focus on the task in hand and do not compromise the control system and integrity of the alarm system.

High Performance HMI

We have had an exciting and ground breaking month.  We have been working on HMI Philosophy and Style Guides for one of our Power Industry customers and a new Transmission and Control Center which will have the biggest Large Screen Display (LSD) System and it will be designed to the new High Performance HMI standards, grey scale.  This is quite a change and the operator’s are very enthusiastic and working hard to make this a successful implementation.

Control Room Design – www.Mycontrolroom.com

We are still doing control room projects, the recent are left over from last year, so we are looking for new projects.  We offer two types of services:  a gap analysis looking at exiting control rooms against today’s best practices and International Standards for ergonomic design of control rooms or a full blown Conceptual and Detail Design based on ISO 11064 standard design.

Staffing Assessments and Workload Design

We are hoping to see some new contracts for staffing assessment and workload design.  We have a very robust methodology which was developed by UCDS Inc. and has been well received by the industry and around the world.  We have the capability to review Greenfield, brown field or existing sites.  We have a proven and well tested methodology for inside/outside operators, dedicated inside and outside operators, Supervisor staffing and the management team and operations organization.

Management of Organization Change

We have developed a well recognized methodology which we have implemented here in the USA, in Australia and Europe.  The methodology is based on the UK HSE Staffing methodology and uses a scenario based system that focuses on three main points Detection, Comprehension and Resolution.
It provides a very comprehensive way to evaluate how an effective team that is staffed for normal operations may cope during both Abnormal and Emergency operations.  It also takes an in-depth investigation into the management systems that support operators during these times.  It identifies strengths and weaknesses and provides a benchmark against known industrial standards.

UK Visit

I will be in the UK during March and I am offering a reduced price workshop for any of our World-class Workshops in Alarm Management, High Performance HMI, Situation Awareness and Control Room Design or Management of Organizational Change.  Take advantage of this offer and save on airfares.

CCE Interiors – http://cceinteriors.com/
We are Experts in Critical Space.

We understand the unique requirements of the 24/7 control room, focusing on the need
to support people and technology. With this is mind, we design spaces that efficiently, effectively and ergonomically meet your needs today and tomorrow. Our singular focus on mission-critical environments is your strategic advantage. Let’s discuss how you can benefit from our expertise.

Military & Government Case Study 1

Military Command and Control Center
Anchorage, AK

Military Command and Control Center

CCE and the base Command Staff worked closely together to coordinate proper design into the renovation of this command center. After conducting an onsite visit to view current operations as well as interviewing the staff to determine needs and requirements, CCE was able to design custom Evans Strategy and Dispatch consoles along with matching millwork to specifically meet the client’s needs.

We start the New Year with great anticipation for 2010.  We hope the poor economy is behind us and we look forward to working with our customers and friends this year.

After the holidays, we started the year with a company meeting in Miami at one of the resorts.   Our logo for the meeting was 2010: Beyond Global Recession and in true form we had a Hook-N-Cook.  We had one group go fishing for supper while others enjoyed a free day at the resort.

It is not often the whole company gets together and shares our success and challenges, but what a great start to the year.  We are very encouraged and feel very confident we have a great solution set for our customers.

We are innovative and keep coming up with new ideas, improving our services and products and are excited about some new ideas we will be sharing with our customers this year.

We talked about:
Business sectors and new markets
Control Room Design
High Performance HMI
Alarm Management
Staffing and workload assessments, the impact of control loops and alarm overload.

Group dinner at the resort was really good.  After a hard day of presentations, everyone enjoyed the relaxing time together and ability to share a few jokes and have a few laughs.  We have a really good sales team that is committed to the company and each other.

Well, not sure how the resort thing went down but we landed a great supper.  Dave was the hero who caught the biggest fish and the smallest fish in one catch.  I think he had some Chemical Engineer tricks associated with the bate that landed him that monster.

We both have a busy month ahead of us.  We will be in Hartford, Connecticut visiting a customer who we are helping with a new Transmission and Control Center.  The building is now well on its way and we will be completing the High Performance HMI Style Guide and re-designing the Distribution wall into grey-scale graphic format.  We have already completed the Philosophy documents, so we are making good progress.

On the 26th of January, I will be in Texas A&M and will be presenting the keynote address.  You can download a copy from our website or click here.  I am grateful for the opportunity to kick the meeting off and share some new thoughts around the integration of the Safety & Automation System within a common operator interface.

In 2009, world travels took me to some great places, good customers and 150,000 miles with my favorite airline.  I am looking forward to what this year will bring?

We will be participating with Jack Pankoff (Production Excellence, Inc) in his new workshop “A System Approach for your Plant to Thrive in any Economic Climate” on April 7 -9th in Denver, Colorado.  Click here for more information.

Dave and I want to wish all our customers, colleagues, and friends and associates a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.  I think we are all ready to put 2009 behind us.  Many of our friends and colleagues have had a hard year.

I have just gotten back from a tour of England visiting customer’s and presenting at the Control Room Conference in London.  London was very wet and cold, but the conference was excellent with some great speaker’s including some very dear friends.

Mark & Marie Green from Norway gave an excellent presentation on gathering User Requirements.  They are true professionals and a great team.  They showed off one of their successful projects with Shell in Norway and how they transformed the control room, the alarm management and the HMI.

They were followed by another old friend and colleague, Nick Dinadis, who gave a great review of the Worsley Alumina graphics, a job we jointly did in Australia that has won several design awards.  Nick gave a great review of their Advanced Process Graphics and the tools they developed and are now selling.  The audience was in for a treat, these were just two of what would be more great papers.

ife from Norway then presented a methodology for Designing effective large screen displays, a well needed set of guidelines focused on 8 different ways operators use their large screens.  They reviewed design principles and patterns and a process with some very practical advice.  It was excellent.  Not many people know of this organization which is their loss, they do some great research and have taken HMI design to a new level similar to our High Performance Graphics.

John Zubak of UReason UK gave a nice paper on Signposting the role of an alarm system followed by some outstanding alarm work by Dr. Robin Brooks of Curvaceous Software Ltd.  This was the first alarm management paper in the last 10 years that got me excited as he explained how alarms can achieve management objectives, how to understand alarm settings in a new light and how to change them correctly.

Andy Brazier then gave two excellent papers on control room operations and focusing on MOOC and managing risk.  He completed a workshop on the HSE Staffing Methodology.  The conference had many more good papers but, I cannot review them all.  I covered a new topic on Organizational Accidents and teamwork and resource management in supervisory control.  How procedures and discretionary responses impact rule violations.  Finally understanding peoples mental models and the impact of training in all operating modes.

My time in England came to a very cold and hostile end as snow engulfed the UK and my drive to Humberside to visit a customer.  I had a little Ford KA as Manchester Airport had no cars available.  It was scary driving on UK motorways in a tin can on wheels. The wipers were ineffective and frozen so visibility was very poor.

My trip home was no better; it started with a cancelled flight as Philadelphia also experienced the snow.
Two days later I finally got home at 3:00 am thanks to poor service from the airlines during our flight transfer in Philadelphia.  We missed our final flight by just 10 minutes after long delays in England and delays in baggage claim.  Why is my suitcase always the last off the plane?  I have concluded because I am always early and mine is first on.  I did not know they operated a first in last out policy.

While I was away, Dave kept the business running doing a variety of jobs from HMI style guide and philosophy to new control room design and operator staffing for several projects.

This month, I have deliberately waited to post the news as this is my favorite month for preparing for the holidays.  We start the month with a good old English tradition celebrating Bonfire night, which means a big party at my place.  Poor old Guy Fawkes gets his lot as we celebrate the saving of King James and his parliament and the birth of the Authorized Bible.

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving and the birth of America and again the hand of God in their deliverance. I am again grateful to David Barton who reminds us:

“The tradition of Thanksgiving as a time to focus on God and thank Him for His blessings dates back almost four centuries in America. Colonists held Thanksgiving services in Texas in 1541, in Florida in 1565, and in Virginia in 1607 and 1619, but it is from the Pilgrims that we derive the current tradition of a Thanksgiving that includes prayers to God, a meal with friends, and a time of athletic competition.

When we review the calamities, which afflict so many other nations, the present condition of the United States affords much matter of consolation and satisfaction. Our exemption hitherto from foreign war – an increasing prospect of the continuance of that exemption – the great degree of internal tranquility we have enjoyed – the recent confirmation of that tranquility by the suppression of an insurrection which so wantonly threatened it – the happy course of public affairs in general – the unexampled prosperity of all classes of our citizens; are circumstances which peculiarly mark our situation with indications of the Divine beneficence towards us.

In such a state of things it is, in an especial manner, our duty as people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience.

Deeply penetrated with this sentiment, I, George Washington, President of the United States, do recommend to all religious societies and denominations, and to all persons whomsoever, within the United States, to set apart and observe Thursday, the nineteenth day of February next, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer: and on that day to meet together and render their sincere and hearty thanks to the great Ruler of nations for the manifold and signal mercies which distinguish our lot as a nation. particularly for the possession of constitutions of government which unite and, by their union, establish liberty with order; for the preservation of peace, foreign and domestic; and for the seasonable control, which has been given to a spirit of disorder, in the suppression of the late insurrection; and generally for the prosperous course of our affairs, public and private; and, at the same time, humbly and fervently to beseech the kind Author of these blessings. graciously to prolong them to us – to imprint on our hearts a deep and solemn sense of our obligations to Him for them – to teach us rightly to estimate their immense value – to preserve us from the arrogance of prosperity and from hazarding the advantages we enjoy by delusive pursuits – to dispose us to merit the continuance of His favors by not abusing them, by our gratitude for them, and by a correspondent conduct as citizens and as men – to render this country, more and more, a propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries – to extend among us true and useful knowledge – to diffuse and establish habits of sobriety, order, morality, and piety – and, finally, to impart all blessings we possess or ask for ourselves, to the whole family of mankind”.

The great George Washington knew the benefit of peace, the horror of war and the time of Thanksgiving.  We too should stop and reflect on all the good gifts we have been blessed with.

As for UCDS Inc., we have been blessed in this time of recession in the world.  As many of our customers are finding, it is hard and they have had to let go of good people, while still striving to achieve hard earned profit and be sustainable and ready for better times.

Control Room Design
We are thankful and take this week to thank those customers who have contracted with us to deliver them a state of the art best practice control room. We are currently doing this in Denver, Connecticut, Ohio, Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Saudi Arabia, Norway and India.

Control rooms still in the building phase in Port Arthur – Texas, Convent – Louisiana, Cork – Ireland, Australia, Canada.

That is a lot of control rooms and we have done every one to the ISO 11064 Ergonomic Design Standard and had a lot of fun doing them with some great people.

HMI Design
This has been an exceptional year for new High Performance HMI design, our new book has been a great success with many companies accepting it as a company guideline and purchasing multiple copies.  We have had ground breaking success as we have introduced new Overview Displays using Large Screen Displays with some very large video walls, some looking to exploit the new LED technology. We have a new enhanced HP HMI Workshop.

Alarm Management
We have been employed at many of these sites to help customers get control of their alarms.  One of our customers has achieved a 72% reduction in alarms and now meets the EEMUA 191 guidelines.  A great achievement and a blessing to those operators that previously reacted to alarms and now are more predictive, less stressed, and feel more in control.  I am sure a great tool in this will be Doug Rothenberg’s new book on Alarm Management; I just got my copy and will be reading it over the holidays.  It looks very impressive and full of a lot of facts!  We have developed one of the Best Philosophy documents available on the market and we always tune it to each specific customer and site.

Operator Staffing Assessments
We have done a very large number of operator staffing assessment both for Inside Console Operators or (Control Operators) and Field or Equipment Operators. We have now done this successfully in multiple industries from Refining, Petrochemicals, Copper, Aluminum, and Power Industry.  I think one of our greatest achievements has been the endorsement we have received from both management and Unions alike; addressing what can be a very political issue and very sensitive subject.

Management of Organizational Change (MOOC)
Every staffing assessment we have done we always endorse our formal methodology to address MOOC and to ensure that any change in staffing, equipment or environment is checked out through our scenario based methodology.  The methodology investigates the safety aspects and ensures that no task is forgotten and that operators can always ensure safe operation and have the time and ability to safely shut a process down or recover from an Abnormal Situation.

One customer recently shared how this activity provided the operator’s with confidence that moving form a multiple control room environment to a single centralized facility while looking at a significant reduction in the workforce was not only achievable but was better.

In the recent Texas City accident we witnessed large loss of life which may have been prevented had MOOC been one of the management systems.  In the Baker Report we hear of the re-enforcement of this management system and we have also been informed by the Chemical Safety Board and OSHA of the need for all plants to accept and use this methodology.

We have a very successful workshop on this subject and we actually do it on site and review real changes, real scenarios, and fix what could be really expensive and life threatening mistakes and oversight.

As we celebrate Americas Thanksgiving let me say thank you to all our friends, customers and associates for another year of business and the opportunity to replace many of the mistakes that have infiltrated our industry over the last 50 years.  Today, we are witnessing a revelation in control rooms, High Performance HMI, Alarm Management and how we staff plants.  This paradigm shift is exciting, is very cost effective and is not only helping operators perform better with less human errors, but is producing increased profitability, improved maintenance, less variability and improved quality with reduced energy costs.

Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving.

This last month Dave and I both got very wet!  I was in Atlanta during the downpours and Dave was doing safety training and learning to escape from a crashed helicopter upside down in water.  I think mine was a much nicer wet than his.  Well done Dave you braved your worst fear for the Company.

After all this off-shore training, Dave spent time in Angola on a FPSO while I have been doing HMI training and Situation Awareness Workshops in Atlanta.  We started a couple of new projects this month one in India and a new Greenfield refinery, we will be doing the control room, staffing analysis and helping with the HMI and Alarm Management Design.  Our affiliates, Lin & Associates will be doing the HMI design.

I have also started the review of a Power Station Control Room in Georgia, nice people to work with and some challenges as they decide if they should revamp their existing control room or build a new one.  This is a question a lot of companies are asking and we are helping them to get an answer.

I just finished a job in Norway working with our good friends at Borregaard; they have made great progress and have broken ground on the control room, a big celebration as they celebrated their 120th Birthday.  They have made good progress with centralization as the Digester has moved into the existing Central Control Room, in preparation for the move into the new CCR.

This trip has been involved in coaching the management team on organizational issues and the operators on the design of Large Screen Displays.  The good news for me was the winter has not started and the weather was very nice.  It is always nice to visit this site, the people are very friendly and are interested in improving and embracing the changes associated with the new control center.

This last month also included the ISA show.  Yes, I got an award for working with the SP18 Alarm Management group, thank you ISA, very much appreciated.  Lisa Garrison and I led a workshop on alarms, HMI and Control Room Design which was very well received.  Lisa is a great person to work with; she has a quiet confidence and deep rich knowledge of her subject matter and has a great product to show people.

Other news within UCDS, Melinda is expecting twin girls next year.  Congratulations to her and Jason, we rejoice with them and wish Melinda good health and a safe delivery.

We are grateful to all the Power Companies that have been requesting our services this last month and we look forward to serving them in the months ahead.  We are excited about helping out in the design of the new transmission center and the replacement of the mapboard by state of the art LSD with gray scale High Performance Graphics.

At the October 2009 ISA Show in Houston, Texas, I was presented with the following ISA SP18 Alarm Management Award: