| Abnormal events in petrochemical plants cost the industry billions of dollars annually. In part, these events are difficult to deal with because current interfaces do not adequately inform operators about the state of the process. Ecological human-machine interfaces use a system-based analysis to identify higher-level process functions that should be presented in the operator interface. Several laboratory simulator studies have shown that, in comparison with contemporary interfaces, ecological interfaces can lead to faster fault detection, more accurate root-cause diagnosis, and more effective control responses. However, ecological interfaces differ from more traditional human centered interfaces that use a task-based analysis to inform the design process. In this dissertation, the first ecological interface for an industrial system to integrate both system- and task-based information was designed and implemented. A second ecological interface was created, drawing exclusively from the traditional system-based analyses. The process of integrating the two types of analyses and using them to inform the designs is discussed. Professional operators used the novel interfaces in an industrial petrochemical process simulator to monitor for, diagnose, and respond to several types of process events. Operators using the traditional ecological interfaces completed trials more quickly and executed fewer control actions than their counterparts using current process displays. Operators using the integrated (task- and system-based) ecological interface also showed these benefits, and in addition, showed improved fault diagnoses and better performance scores. The implications and opportunities for introducing ecological interfaces into industrial control rooms are discussed. |
