The Future of Process Plant Control Rooms

Ergonomic Design and New Generation Human Interface Helps Operators
-Improve Plant Performance and Safety

Process Solutions today announced availability of the Experion® Orion Console, an advanced display technology that brings the plant control room of the future to the present by meeting the changing needs of the increasingly mobile plant operator.

The console, which builds on Honeywell’s flagship Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS) control platform, features an improved ergonomic design and better displays to simplify control system management, reduce operator fatigue and improve situational awareness. It was unveiled this week at the 2014 Honeywell Users Group Symposium in San Antonio, Texas.

The Experion Orion Console’s design was based on operator input gleaned from numerous visits to plant control rooms around the world and across industries, in both newer and older plants. The design and capabilities are the result of behaviour observations, as well as insights collected in multiple phases at plants, including process startups and during periods of abnormal operations.

“The state of plant control today is like putting operators on a sleepless, 12-hour flight in economy-class seating and then asking them to make a critical decision that impacts their company’s production and employee safety,” said Jason Urso, chief technology officer, Honeywell Process Solutions. “Operators need more than just process data to make a decision like that; they need an environment that helps keep them alert, allows them to move about more freely, and presents information more intuitively. The Experion Orion Console was designed with all of those factors in mind.”

The console’s features include a flexible, ultra-high definition overview and detailed, touchscreen displays that provide clear status assessments of process operations in a single glance for better and more-informed management. This flexibility also enables operators to customise these displays for context-specific process issues, and incorporates advanced alarm management and pan and zoom capabilities. This better enables operators to quickly respond to changing conditions and prevent situations that could lead to plant incidents and emergencies.

Aside from the actual information, however, the improved display also reduces operator fatigue by allowing personnel to move about the control room more freely than before. When paired with wireless-enabled mobile technologies, the system also allows operators to view the same displays on hand-held devices in other areas of the plant.

“Plants must be designed and built according to a company’s specific production needs, but the control rooms themselves should be built around the operators’ needs,” Urso said. “If you meet the operators’ needs, they can manage the plant more effectively and at optimum levels, which ultimately impacts plant safety, reliability and efficiency more than anything else.”