Analog elements for effective process operation

Without context no information

Despite the enormous development in process automation recent decades, little has changed in HMI design with the result that the operator interfaces provide insufficient insight into the status of the process.

In recent years, research has been done to industrial business losses and accidents caused by defective interfaces. The most common cause of errors and accidents was, that the operators did not have the right information to intervene effectively when abnormal situations occurred. The amount of data available was overwhelming, but lacked the tools for the operators, in order to interpret these data correctly.
Data itself is not information but need context in order to be correctly interpreted. Importantly, the manner in which the context is provided.

Migration

Conversion as a means not as a goal

Many processes were automated 15 years or more ago at a time when process automation was still in its infancy. A lot has changed in the meantime; hardware is outdated and computer systems are evolved. The support for the outdated hardware and software has stopped.

For many companies, the time has come to replace the outdated systems, either in its totality or in phases. In both cases, the largest part of the available budget is spent on "state of the art" hardware and software. The rest of the budget is spent to transfer the existing HMI to the new operating system. For reasons of time and money the existing HMI is converted by means of a, usually available, migration application.

Result: Hypermodern, multimillion dollar facility is operated from an HMI that was developed decades ago on the basis of the limited knowledge, brief guidelines and limited possibilities.