Control Rooms Documents
Documents – Control Rooms
The following documents are available for download. Please use this form to select the documents you would like to download.
[email-download download_id="80,81,21,33,67,55,30,68,74,75,43" contact_form_id="1023"]
Documents – Control Rooms
* Control Room Projects
Since the early 1970’s process Industries were faced with an alarming number of incidents causing undesired effects ranging from reduced profits to loss of lives. Industry began doing studies into the causes of these incidents and found that human factors had a significant impact.
* Control Room Operators & Human Factors
Abnormal situations encompass a range of events outside the “normal” plant operating modes, e.g. trips, fires, explosions, toxic releases or just not reaching planned targets. In the past incidents such as Piper Alpha, Milford Haven, Texas City and the 2003 northeast electrical blackout have all been attributed, at least in part, to a fundamental lack of good situational awareness in the control room.
* Abnormal Situation Management – The need for Good Situation Awareness
A paper presented by Ian Nimmo, September of 2004 at the symposium “Advances in Process Control 7”. The paper discusses strategies to help operators maintain a high level of situational awareness i.e., an accurate perception of the current condition of the process and equipment, and accurate understanding of the meaning of key performance indicators.
* Designing a Control Building
Written by Ian Nimmo, published by Hydrocarbon Engineering – Nov 2002. Article discusses major aspects to designing a new control building i.e., building location, standards, selecting an architecture firm, building company, console layout and ergonomic considerations, people changes and management of change.
* Designing Control Rooms for Humans
Written by Ian Nimmo and John Moscatelli, published in Control Magazine – July 2004. Article discusses today’s work environment and how it has been revolutionized by PC’s and PC workstations.
* Putting on a Human Face on the Design of Control Rooms
Written by Ian Nimmo, published by Process Control Magazine – May 2004. Article discusses how technology has pushed Industrial processes to the limit, and why Companies should implement standards and best practices around factors such as human related incidents and Control Room Design.
* The Safety Issues of Batch and other controls
Written by Ian Nimmo, presented as Keynote presentation May of 2005 at the World Batch Forum. This paper discusses a new approach to safety, breaking the traditional barriers of people, organizations and culture and puts the control engineer back in the driving seat for determining performance improvements, optimizing control algorithms, people, and the way they interface with technology.
* Shift Worker & Fatigue
The incidence of fatigue is underestimated in virtually every industry because it is hard to quantify and measure. Recognizing that fatigue management requires major changes in both organizational culture and operator behavior.
* Cost Estimate of a New Control Room
We have to improve the work environment if we want operators to be effective. We often get asked, how much does a new state of the art control room cost, we need an estimate for budgeting. So how much does a new control room cost? – Well you have to consider every phase of the project from project conception to ribbon cutting.
* Operator Training and Qualification
To gain a competitive advantage, decisions are made to spend millions of dollars to upgrade technology, equipment, control rooms, etc. in process plants. However, there is very little thought given to upgrading the performance of the plant operators. These individuals are left to rely on inadequate or non-existent training systems to develop the knowledge and skills required to effectively operate the equipment and processes.
* Operator Consoles: Growing Old Together
Written by Ian Nimmo, published in Hydrocarbon Engineering – January 2005. Article discusses refurbishment projects and best methodologies and standards for making the changes such as Study of Management Systems, i.e., people and performance systems; Ergonomic Design of Operating desks or Consoles; Human Computer Interface, Alarm Management, and Design of Control Rooms.