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Operator Centered Control Rooms
What do all control room operators have in common? Technology advanced and the human factor was forgotten, but they all do the best with what they got. Technology, in many cases, made life worse for operators. They work in a position where situation awareness is critical yet we keep adding screens and data thinking it…
Read MoreSelecting and Training Operators
Operators are often selected based on years of experience and are rarely tested for managing large amounts of data and hundreds of unique scenarios. Rarely do they receive formal process condition training using a formalized classroom instruction course with professionally prepared training manuals and tests. Most companies rely on experience and move people from one…
Read MoreControl Room Alarm Management
In this video Ian Nimmo, CEO of UCDS, discusses why alarm management is so critical to the control room. He explains why major accidents have been attributed to the alarm system. In many situations, the operator missed important events because they were overwhelmed with alarms and did not have the opportunity to go through the…
Read MoreNavigating Control Building Policies and Procedures Post COVID-19
As the world adapts to a new norm resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, many Process Control operations have been developing work policies to further mitigate the spread and outbreak of the virus. While 24/7 command and control environments contain similar working routines as compared to typical office environments, Control Buildings require many strategies that go…
Read MoreControl Room Design
In this video, Ian Nimmo of UCDS discusses the importance and complexity of control room design. It’s much more than simply hiring an architect to design a control room. Nimmo describes just some of the considerations that need to be made when designing a control room. Beyond architecture, there’s the layout, communication between users, flow…
Read MoreWhy choose UCDS?
Ian Nimmo, President and CEO of User Centered Design Services, discusses the company’s history. UCDS has been in existence for over 20 years. Our foundation was at the abnormal situation management research consortium where Nimmo was the program director. Now, operations are the main focus of UCDS, both in the control room and in the…
Read MoreDo you know your Process’ Sacred Six?
My first lesson in Human Factors was a memorable one as evidenced by the fact that it has stuck with me for over 20 years. As I remember the talk during World War II, the fatality rate of US Navy aviators, due to pilot error in training and in action, had become unacceptably high.…
Read MoreIf one of your operators misses an alarm because there are too many, what is the best solution?
As a former Process Control Manger, I have had this discussion more times than I can remember, and it has generally been with people who I would otherwise consider intelligent. Thinking back, I find it interesting that I never had this discussion with the person with the most knowledge of the situation, the console operator. So, what is…
Read MoreHow to Create Control Room Design Specifications
The basis of any control room design specification should be based on the International Standard for Ergonomic Design of Control Centers ISO 11064. The document is in 7 parts, part 6 being the main specification. Before you can use this part 6 of the standard much work needs to be done clarifying the control room…
Read MoreUnderstand the Control Room Design Layout Requirements
The control room design layout is conceived during the Conceptual Design Phase of a control room project and formalized during the Detail Design Phase. The requirement comes from the initial data collection phase capturing and analyzing functions and tasks, developing room layouts, furnishing designs, displays and controls, and communication interfaces to necessary to satisfy needs…
Read More5 Ways to Better Equip Your Control Room Operator
In control rooms are day-to-day issues and systems that impact the performance of control room operators, the most common are defined as compromises to Situation Awareness. We will review each of the five and provide insight into practical solutions to implement them. The first is providing Adequate Information, control rooms are full of data, but little…
Read More3 Things You Didn’t Know About High Performance HMI
The High-Performance HMI is grounded in ASMTM principles. The Honeywell ASM Consortium which I used to be the Program Director and founder did extensive research into HMI graphics practices. At the time, Honeywell was locked into a development path which was not graphics friendly and was before the decision to switch to a Windows-based control…
Read MoreWhy High Performance HMI Is Often Misunderstood in the Control Room
The processing industry has evolved from physical instruments on a panel to electronic physical controllers on the panel to a limited group of 8 faceplates on a black background which replicated the electronic controllers. The industry identified that this limited view did not show the context of the faceplate and relied on the operator mental…
Read MoreHow Alarm Management Could Save Your Company Millions
Alarm Management is more than just another chore companies must do to comply with Regulations, it is a great investment and has an immediate ROI when done correctly. Unfortunately, it is often treated as a chore with no ROI. Let me say first off that no plant or process is designed to run in Abnormal…
Read MoreHow to Do Your Own Alarm Management Training
Alarm management training is something that many companies skip assuming that operators will figure out how to respond to an alarm, they do this because that is the way it has always been done. As alarms get more complex, more rational, and more ways to configure them using multiple alarm modes and attributes. Some alarms…
Read MoreHow to Create an Alarm Management Policy
Alarm Management is probably one of the most written about topics in control theory and one of the best-documented methodologies covered by International and local standards and guidance documents, yet, still many companies do not know where to start or how to get a handle on a bad alarm management system. The problem stems from…
Read MoreTypes of Organizational Change Management
Organizational change can come in many forms. The most common today is workload balancing, many companies have been through the dark period of de-manning and laying the workforce off to save costs. This came after automation reduced the need for the number of outside workers. Now because of changes to equipment, shutting down some units…
Read MoreISO 11064 Is Still Crucial in Control Rooms. Here Is Why.
ISO 11064 is the only Ergonomic Standard that comprehensibly addresses the Human Factors and Ergonomics of a control room. The role of the standard is twofold, it addresses the risk to humans through Repetitive Stress Injuries or MSDs which have been identified globally to cost industry more than $508 Billion which includes human error, turnover…
Read MoreFatigue Risk Management Is Just About Keeping People Awake
Fatigue Risk Management is focused on two import aspects: alertness and fatigue that leads to falling asleep. Studies show that many shift workers acknowledge falling asleep at work due to irregular work-rest schedules. Nodding off has in many places been an acceptable byproduct of shift work but is extremely dangerous for process control operators who…
Read MoreFatigue Risk Management Systems Could Bring New Life to Your Tired Operators
Recent studies of workers have identified that job dissatisfaction along with a previous history of MSDs were the two most significant predictive factors for employees reporting work-related injuries. A 2013 Gallup poll finds that 70% of US workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. This results in a $550 Billion loss in productivity. Shift-workers, particularly those…
Read More3 Things to Change to Better Manage Operator Workload
Operator workload is driven by three main topics: The physical equipment they monitor. The interactions they do on a day-to-day basis. The automation system. If you want to influence the workload you must make changes to one of these three areas of influence. The easiest one to comprehend is the physical equipment under their control.…
Read MoreLearn why the alarm management safety layer is flawed and what to do to make sure abnormal situations are detected, managed, and prevented.
The operators job is to keep the process running at optimal capacity. Operators have a direct effect on quality, they prevent unplanned downtime, respond to safety critical events, and can provide valuable feedback that can save companies millions of dollars. They are a direct link to millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. Unfortunately, they…
Read MoreControl Room Operators – The Ugly Step Children
It’s true, operators are treated like ugly step children and the sad fact is they are the eyes, ears, and puppet masters of the process. There must be a good reason we have them. How much more value could they bring if we changed the way we looked at them? Is it time for a…
Read MoreJoin us at the Lin & Associates 2017 Workshop
Ian Nimmo will be presenting: The Enemy Within Lurking within our control rooms is a demon, who strikes at the worst possible time in the life of a control room. During the early hours of the morning driven by poor lighting, unhealthy environmental controls, fatigue takes its toll – with no fatigue countermeasures in place…
Read MoreHow to Get Management to Fund Your Alarm Management Efforts
Most of my clients have already implemented some form of alarm improvement process, from low hanging fruit nuisance alarm reduction to full blown alarm rationalization and documentation. For most, their efforts reflect the amount of support they received from management and the resources they had available at the time. Unfortunately, after nearly 20 years, our…
Read MoreAlarm Management and Operator Intervention
(A Safety Layer with Too Many Holes) I’m sure you have heard of Independent Safety Layers, alarm management and operator intervention being one of them. Operators are the fist line of defense when alarms activate so they are a safety layer, however, just because you rationalized your alarms does not mean the operator will respond in…
Read MoreHow Many Operators Do You Need?
To assess the ability to reduce or increase staffing levels, the facility must take an honest look at the quality of the workforce. How are console operators chosen? The move to a dedicated console-operator post should be treated as an upgrade in duties and pay. The selection should not be based on seniority, but on…
Read MoreThe Paradigm Shift in the Control Room
By Paul Noble, CEO, Activu Corporation Today’s control room is not what it was a decade ago. Gone are the days where these spaces were based on analog or nascent digital video technology. Control rooms have instead transformed into networked information centers that play a major role in operations; spaces where information sharing, communication and…
Read MoreUCDS working with Sunoco
UCDS Helps Sunoco Design a New centralized control facility that aims to optimize their Philadelphia refinery Console Operator Bill Johnson, a 24-year Sunoco veteran, makes changes in the operations of the new low sulfur fuels unit from the new central control room. The recently finished low sulfur gasoline unit is the first plant to be…
Read MoreControl Room Operators and the Key Hole Effect
The key hole effect: Your control room operator is monitoring a process with several loops and several points, they have multiple screens and each screen has hundreds of graphics to navigate through, uh oh, several alarms start to activate! The operator begins to navigate through several graphics to determine the problem but has a very limited view because there are so many screens to…
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