Human factors engineering is a major issue in the process industries—big enough that there are now two separate organizations on the case.
By Greg A. Jamieson
Is there any better indicator that an industry is grappling with a complex problem than when competing companies form a consortium to solve it? There must be a great deal of work to do, then, in the process industries, because there are now two consortia addressing similar issues. In both groups, human factors engineers are playing a central role in defining how future process operations will integrate people and technology to maximize plant safety and productivity.
Like much of the world, the process industries have undergone remarkable changes as a consequence of the microprocessor revolution. The distributed control systems, or DCS, introduced in the mid-1970s allowed for the control of large process installations (think refineries, power plants, and heavy manufacturing) by small, centrally located operations teams. Replacing individual regulatory controllers, the DCS integrated multiple controllers into schemes of increasing complexity, governed by advanced computation, logic, and sequential commands.
DCS not only created a new way to control plant operations. It also created a new type of work. No longer were plant operators directly responsible for the control of process variables. Rather, they were responsible for setting up schemes of controllers and supervising their performance. Process operations became a passive job in which an operator's most prevalent challenge was often maintaining a sufficient level of alertness to deal with the occasional alarm. Individual plants evolved their training programs, information display standards, and organizational cultures to accommodate the new work demands.
This surface calm masked deeper problems, however. Operators engaged in this new "supervisory control" work no longer practiced direct manual control of the process; they were removed from the smells and sounds of the plant, and they lost touch with the extensive and often hidden coupling between components. The distributed control system created an automation buffer between human and machine.
As long as the process advanced in step, this buffer was not a serious concern. However, process systems are subject to disturbances, both environmental and mechanical. Engineers designed the technology to handle the disturbances that were determined to be most likely to occur, or most threatening to the process. When situations exceeded this design basis, the automation surrendered control to the human operator. The human—who with rusty control skills, an impoverished sense of what was happening in the plant, and a vague understanding of just what the automation was doing before it quit—now had to assume control in highly unappealing circumstances. The results were often expensive, and occasionally fatal. And they were usually attributed to "human error."
The problem with the "human error" attribution, however, is that blaming humans for technology failures leaves engineers with little insight into how to design alternative human-technology systems that are more resistant to failure. It is, therefore, no surprise that human factors specialists in a leading control system vendor pushed for engineering solutions to the problem of human error in the process industries.
Honeywell and the leading players in the oil and gas industry formed the Abnormal Situation Management consortium almost a decade and a half ago. The Consortium has developed products and established best practices to identify and address human factors issues in the process industries. Human Factors has become part of the ASM brand under which training and consulting services are offered today.
But others apparently believe that there is still plenty of work left to be done. A second group, formed around Wright State University and Beville Engineering, was formed last year to research some of the questions that remain unanswered in the process industries. Known as the Center for Operator Performance, it prominently lists among its founding members some of Honeywell's competitors, including Emerson Process Management and ABB.
Companies in the process industries have experienced rapid changes in their operations over the past several decades. Much of that change comes from the use of new information systems, which can monitor and often automate decision processes that used to require closer human involvement. The process industry has also encountered some unexpected consequences of the new systems.
The same thing can be said of other companies that have adopted new information technology for supervision and control. And that group probably includes representatives from just about every sector of heavy industry.
However, what may be different in the petroleum, power, and chemical industries is that a confusing information system is not just a threat to productivity. When the right steps are not taken during an emergency at a refinery, say, or a chemical plant, there is a potential threat to safety and to public health as well.
Consider the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City Refinery, which killed 15 workers and injured scores more. The report, http://www.chemsafety.gov/index.cfm?folder=completed _investigations&page=info&INV_ID=52, on this accident from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board reveals that a confluence of equipment, management, and operational factors contributed to the incident. But as is often the case in such accidents, the actions (and inactions) of operators contributed to the disaster. It is this sort of event, and the costs incurred as a result, that have driven these businesses to seek solutions in more human-centered control technologies.
The Abnormal Situation Management consortium was formally established in 1994 by process industry heavyweights—Amoco, BP, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Shell, and Texaco—under an umbrella provided by Honeywell. The initial aim was to develop collaborative decision support technologies to overcome some of the well-established limitations in distributed control systems, such as the classic problem of alarm flooding, where operators become overwhelmed by scores of point alarms that accompany a process upset.
The ASM group now comprises15 companies and universities. The organization describes itself on its Web site, http://www.asmconsortium.com, as "concerned about the negative effects of industrial plant incidents." The consortium says, "It identifies problems facing plant operations during abnormal conditions, and develops solutions. Deliverables include products and services, guideline and other documents, and information-sharing workshops, all incorporating ASM knowledge.
According to the group, "Abnormal situations are managed by prevention, early detection, and mitigation, in order to reduce unplanned outages and process variability that reduce profits and increase the risk to plant employees and local communities."
Over its 14-year history, the ASM consortium has emphasized technological solutions development, as evidenced by a catalog of products offered by Honeywell under the ASM designation. Human factors engineers at Honeywell's Advanced Technology Labs and consulting company member Human Centered Solutions have played a key role in ensuring that these technologies and products are human-centered. As a result, "Abnormal Situation Management" now represents a powerful brand in the industry—perhaps powerful enough to have spurred Honeywell's competitors into action.
In 2007, Emerson Process Management and ABB teamed up with several operating companies, consultant groups, and Wright State University to form the Center for Operator Performance. The center's focus is on process industry human factors, emphasizing such topics as early event detection, graphical display standards, and training effectiveness. Although it is still in its very early days, the center appears to be more concerned with testing application of human factors principles over developing new solutions.
According its Web site, http://www.operatorperformance.org/, the Center for Operator Performance is "an alliance of academic and process companies to research generic issues in human factors and process operator performance."
The organization says, "The goal is an open and low-cost forum for the identification, analysis, and dissemination of research in such areas as selection/training, interface design, decision aids, automation, procedures, and control room design."
Founders include Emerson Process Management, ABB, Marathon Pipeline LLC, Nova Chemicals, Flint Hills Resources, Suncor Energy, and BP in addition to Wright State University and Beville, a firm that offers human factors engineering and analysis services to refineries.
Topics that the Center for Operator Performance plans to research include alarm actuation rates and the effectiveness of color and shape coding in graphic displays.
The Abnormal Situation Management consortium and the Center for Operator Performance share the common theme of applying human factors engineering to develop better control technologies and practices for the process industries. It appears that the major control system vendors have come to recognize human factors as a means of differentiating their products in a highly competitive market.
Moreover, the reach of these groups is extensive, enveloping most of the major operating companies in the petroleum industry. The companies have recognized that human factors engineering is a necessary component in the design of safe and effective operating practices. Many have shifted from being reluctant skeptics about human-centered design to demanding to see evidence that vendors are incorporating human factors in their products.
The story of human factors in the process industries is not without precedent. The aviation industry provided an excellent model for how human factors engineering could be applied and the possible benefits in terms of operational safety. It is perhaps unsurprising that Honeywell, a company with a stake in the aviation industry, would be a leader in promoting human factors in the process industries. More recently, there has been an explosion in the application of human factors in the medical field. Trying to anticipate the next domain in which human factors engineering will break out is one of the things that keeps academics busy. Human factors engineering in sustainable systems, anyone?
Greg A. Jamieson is an Associate Professor of Human Factors Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research program and consulting activities focus on the nuclear, petroleum, water, and alternative energy industries.
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