Efficient Plant Operation in Process Industries Using a User-Centric Design

Modern industry relies heavily on automated technical processes, even in process industries. They help to produce products with a higher quality in less time, using less energy and raw materials. The degree of automation and the complexity of these processes are still increasing. Today, process control systems have graphical user interfaces that display an enormous amount of process information to be monitored by fewer and fewer operators. It seems there is no need for human control if a plant is fully automated. But if more automation is installed in a plant, the operators have less training in controlling the process manually. This can be crucial when exceptional process states occur. In such situations, operators have to make correct decisions to bring the process immediately back to a stable state. Due to a high degree of automation, operators do not have the opportunity to acquire the skills they need by controlling the process manually. In addition, long observation periods lead to reduced levels of vigilance. The likelihood of immediately detecting infrequent but important abnormal conditions is reduced. Furthermore, complexity from the operator’s point of view is increased by a heterogeneous working environment involving different automation equipment and software products for process monitoring and control. It is exactly at this point that the innovative, user-centric design approach starts with its visualization concept for process monitoring and control. The distance between plant operators and production process is bridged based on an intuitive visualization of the current process situation. The objective of a user-centric design concept is to help engineers to develop and design human-machine interfaces that are more usable, therefore resulting in safer and more cost-effective process control. It starts in the design phase with operator workshops and it accompanies the production phase as a continuous improvement process. The graphical user interfaces provide optimum situational awareness, assist with decision making, enable immediate detection of exceptional process states, support with accurate operations, reduce operator workload, share best practice operations, provide training under real conditions, deliver homogeneous presentation of process information and target-oriented information.