Incorporating Human Factors into Greenfield projects
Greenfield control room or control system projects should be the ideal candidates for incorporating human factors best practices from the very beginning, however, that is seldom the case.
So why is this? There are several reasons but one of the most common, and perhaps not surprisingly, is related to cost. For large greenfield ICSS projects the MAC/EPC bidding process often leads to minimum initial bid proposals whereby the scope is kept to the bare minimum to execute the project. So, this means basic, out of the box HMI, simple alarm management design, and cookie cutter control building design. Unfortunately, thereafter any changes in scope for implementing best practices become change orders which are kept to a minimum.
Another reason is the lack of expertise within the engineering teams to effectively convey the real value for the implementation of best practices in human factors to improve operational performance. Not just in terms of improved quality and throughput, but in terms of management of off-normal, abnormal and emergency conditions. System vendors often do not have in-house expertise in these areas. Consultants like UCDS do not often get opportunity to talk directly to the end client to help them understand the importance and return on investment of taking a holistic view of operator performance and embedding HF design in the engineering process. However, some vendors recognize this and engage us to assist.
Yet another issue is having access to operations resources early in the project. There will be no operators, supervisors and managers to interview or work on HMI, alarm management and control room design. Sometimes there is an operations readiness team that has experience elsewhere or knowledge of the process and this can be of great help.
The big question is when will you engage the HF team? We would encourage you to do this as early in the process as possible, during proposal development and certainly during pre-FEED. Obviously as part of the proposal process it is important to ensure funds are available for HF activities. It is also important to take advantage of engineering efficiencies that best practice design can provide. For example, deploying a hierarchical approach to graphics may lead to a reduction in the overall number of graphics. Another example is performing dynamic and static rationalization together can reduce the overall cost of rationalization.
During pre-FEED it is important to lay the foundations for how the project will be executed with respect to HF content. At this stage standards will typically be agreed upon, so it is important to create and agree HF philosophies – control room operating, HMI, alarm management, communications etc. This will ensure that considerations for these will be carried over into engineering standards. It is also time to execute the Clarification and Analysis and Definition phases of the ISO 11064 process.
Moving on to FEED there are further HF activities that should be carried out. This is the time to develop the HMI Style Guide as well as perform control room Conceptual Design. However, perhaps the most important activity is to make sure the work team design is decided. Towards the end of the FEED P&IDs should be in a developed enough state to allow performing a workload analysis and determine, perhaps most importantly, the number of console positions. Getting this wrong heading into control room design can be disastrous both in times of cost and schedule.
Performing all these activities in pre-FEED and FEED will ensure that moving into the engineering phase, the team will have solid foundations to execute efficiently.
In conclusion, it is essential to involve the HF team as early as possible in greenfield projects.
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