Improving Human Effectiveness
A single error by a refinery or pipeline operator could gain your company the top slot in the national evening news. This is normally not a good thing. Knowing exactly how to make critical decisions in these circumstances is currently more of an art than a science, at least for now. The Center for Operator Performance (COP) has been established to help processing companies make better decisions based on research. The COP is a multivendor, university, and end user consortia founded in May, 2007. Kenna Amos wrote about this in an Automation World magazine article, “Improving Human Effectiveness (1,835KB PDF).” The article features Emerson’s Duane Toaves who is the director for the Ease of Use Center of Excellence in Austin. The first research project for the COP is adapting military combat decision making exercises (DMXs) to process operations. The preliminary findings of this research produced several surprising results. If improving operator decision making is in your job scope, or you just want to keep your company out of the evening news you can find out the results in the article.
