Operator Centered -Situation Awareness- Control Rooms

This is a perfect example of a control room that was designed for situation awareness. The operator workload was analyzed to know how to balance the workload evenly and to make sure they had the right number of operators in the room. Alarm management was implemented and the displays were designed using Level 1 and 2 situation awareness / human factor design methodology. The best way to display those graphics was determined. Once you know exactly how many operators you need, what they need to see and the best way to present that information, then you can design the console, then design the room to support the people and their requirements. This is designing for operators, the focus is on situation awareness, balanced workload, high performance displays that help operators prevent alarms, and integrating the user requirements into the design of the room. The opposite of what we normally see, where they design a room first and then try to cram as many people, desks, screens, and chairs as they can into the space. The control room is the operating system of the process – where people and technology must come together as a system, human factors has to become a priority for management if they want to improve operations and reduce risks.