Why Operators Keep Failing and the DCS Must Change!

摘要

Over the last 20 years we have witnessed a new range of incidents called OrganizationalrnAccidents or Human Error related. These accidents have little to do with actual organizations orrnquality of people. They are more significantly related to systems and design failures withinrnsystems. Some of today’s control systems have been designed so that an operator can makernerrors that contribute to a major accident. Symptoms of these latent conditions or residentrnpathogens have been recorded around the world from major alarm management problems tornloss of overview or poor and overloaded displays. The control rooms can be a hindrance andrncompromise the operators "situation awareness" due to fatigue, distractions, poorrncommunications and collaboration.rnAll of these can be fixed but not many companies are aware of the problem let alone fixingrnthem.rnThis paper will discuss the issues and detail the solutions as defined by today’s best practices,rnthe processing industry needs to catch-up with the aircraft industry in formally addressingrnhuman factors, ergonomic design practices and designing for situation awareness through usercenteredrndesign techniques.rnLittle information has been available previously on the integrated systems design issuesrnnecessary to support the designer in creating systems that overcome data overload and providernhigh levels of situation awareness.