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Empirical evaluation of the Process Overview Measure for assessing situation awareness in process plants
Nathan Lau1, Greg A Jamieson2, Gyrd Skraaning3
1a Grado Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering , Virginia Tech , Blacksburg , VA , USA.
Ergonomics
|September 24, 2015
Summary
The Process Overview Measure effectively assesses operator situation awareness (SA) in process plants. This query-based tool proved practical, sensitive, valid, and reliable in simulator studies for evaluating operational concepts.
Area of Science:
- Human Factors Engineering
- Cognitive Psychology
- Industrial Process Control
Background:
- Operator situation awareness (SA) is critical for monitoring complex process plants.
- Assessing SA in dynamic industrial settings presents significant challenges.
- Existing measures may not fully capture the nuances of process plant operations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce and validate the Process Overview Measure (POM) for assessing operator SA.
- To evaluate the POM's practicality, sensitivity, validity, and reliability in simulated process plant environments.
- To provide a tool for evaluating the impact of new technologies and operational concepts on operator SA.
Main Methods:
- Development of a query-based measure (POM) tailored to process plant characteristics and operator cognitive workload.
- Conducting two full-scope simulator experiments with distinct operational concepts.
- Assessing practicality through qualitative feedback from participants and researchers.
- Evaluating sensitivity and validity by analyzing experimental manipulation effects and comparing with existing empirical data.
- Determining inter-rater reliability using data from process experts.
Main Results:
- The Process Overview Measure demonstrated practicality, sensitivity, validity, and reliability in simulator experiments.
- Significant effects of experimental manipulations were detected, corroborating other findings.
- The measure showed adequate inter-rater reliability and practicality for use with process experts.
- Qualitative feedback supported the measure's practical application in assessing SA.
Conclusions:
- The Process Overview Measure is a viable tool for assessing operator situation awareness in process plant monitoring.
- The POM can effectively reveal the impact of new control room technology and operational concepts.
- Full-scope simulator studies can reliably utilize the POM for research and evaluation.
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