UCDS offers a full line of consulting services to evaluate your current plant condition, make realistic and achievable recommendations for improvement and aid you in implementing our recommendations. An integral part of this line is a set of human-computer interface (HCI) services providing guidance on industry standards and best practice. These services can be used to:

• Assess the current state of your site’s human-computer interface, benchmarking it versus ASM® recommendations and industry Best Practices.

• Perform Workshops to educate facilities on Best Practices in Human-Computer Interface design

• Develop a detailed Human-Computer Interface Style Guide covering all aspects of Best Practices in situational awareness and cognitive processing, including delivering Training to your facility on proper implementation

A poorly implemented interface adds to workload, increases frustration, stress, and confusion, and can ultimately impact safety, reliability, production, and profitability. A properly implemented human-computer interface can reduce operator work load, improve situational awareness, and aid the operator in preventing minor deviations from becoming major incidents.

A properly implemented Human-Computer interface will also work hand in hand with Alarm Management initiatives. Better presentation of information to the operator improves overall situation awareness. This helps offset the perception operators frequently have that elimination of alarms from the DCS will reduce their ability track the status of the plant.

Recent research has identified that well implemented human-computer interface can improve operator performance in problem detection and resolution by as much as 25%. This reduces the amount of time the plant is running at less than optimal efficiency, thus improving the bottom line. This also reduces operator stress and improves employee relationships.

The Human-Computer Interface Assessment and human-computer interface style guide provide a rational and structured basis for ensuring all areas of importance relating to the human-computer interface are successfully addressed.

Based on this we offer the following services:

• Human Computer Interface Gap Analysis

• High Performance Graphics Workshop
  

• Style Guide

• Migration Strategy

We are also happy to provide customized services based on any specific client requirements.