In the wings, a most unusual set of standards is being born. If all works out, not only will operators be more effective, but taking control room projects from design to deployment will be as simple and quick as possible. What make these nascent standards unusual is that, despite springing from initiatives originating from competing vendors, everyone building them seems to be in a mellow mood, and most agree on one relatively clear overall schema and basically similar visual approaches.

But, nothing, you might say, is that simple and smooth in manufacturing. You are of course right, but the fact remains that there is very deep agreement around what research has revealed about operator interfaces vis-à-vis fast, effective control action when action is required. Behind it all: safety, faster flows of data—and dwindling experience.

The chief driver behind the initiative for standards-based HMIs is safety. “There’s a groundswell of interest in control interfaces that are engineered for clarity and human factors,” says Grant Le Seuer, portfolio director of supervisory software products for Invensys Operations Management ( http://iom.invensys.com), a maker of automation and visualization software based in Plano, Texas. “It’s no longer a vague wish among theoreticians but a strong customer demand to respond rapidly and appropriately to situations where safety is involved. They seek a more acute sense of situation awareness, and above all, they want to provide operators with the tools required to operate the plant.”

A second driver is what might be called point explosions. Peter Bullemer is senior partner at Human Centered Solutions ( www.applyhcs.com) based in Lone Tree, Colo. and a key HMI architect. He says, “Today, there is a huge complexity in operations, with continuous expansion in the number of instrumentation, control and I/O points. The potential data flow is large, to say the least.” Ironically, as Le Seuer points out, “there are fewer operators each doing more work today than a decade ago.” More data bombarding fewer people amplifies the need for greater clarity in HMIs.

Finally, there is a growing need to train relatively inexperienced operators quickly so that they can respond to situations appropriately. Experienced personnel are retiring, taking with them decades-long assimilation of causes and effects—and their ability to spot out-of-control situations from the least of clues. If the HMI can act as a guide through episodes, walking operators through possible causes and recommended actions, it can in part offset the experience drain with smart computer algorithms.

Various initiatives

Guidance in high-performance HMIs is available from a number of sources. Focused on standards development, the ISA101 initiative of the International Society of Automation (ISA) ( www.isa.org ) is sorting out software-based HMI design criteria for industrial control and information systems. Aspects under consideration include information display, process visualization, user interaction, system performance, and documentation and training. The initiative was formed in 2005.

Standardization of HMIs is also a sizeable part of the work undertaken by Abnormal Situation Management Consortium (ASM). ASM’s informal beginning occurred in 1992, with formal organization two years later. Founders in 1992 included Honeywell Process Solutions, Amoco, Chevron, Exxon and Shell, with BP, Mobil (now ExxonMobil), NOVA Chemicals and Texaco coming on board at the formal organization stage. Others have joined since then, including Sasol, ConocoPhillips and Total, as well as several universities including the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University, Penn State, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and UCLA.

HMIs are but one aspect of ASM’s work, which concerns itself as well with daily operations metrics and root cause analysis of processes gone awry, definition of operator roles and responsibilities, maintenance and operations management, simulation, communications (both human and digital), procedure lifecycle management, and monitoring. Many of the ASM players are contributing to ISA101 development, and ASM published its landmark Effective Operator Display Guidelines in 2009, with Bullemer as one of its authors.

There are other organizations looking into HMIs: the Center for Operator Performance, various initiatives within the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and, of course, individual companies—Emerson’s human-centered design initiative comes to mind here, as well as Rockwell Automation’s moves to integrate and align common capabilities across all control products. Virtually every company involved in products and software for operations management has something brewing

For a while, beginning in the 1980s and still to be found today, HMIs flirted with visual simulation. When computers took the place of relays and custom electronics, operator interfaces became miniature pantomimes of processes. On screen and increasingly in color, tanks filled, stirrers turned, valves opened ...