I just returned from a large modern refinery. When I visited the control room, with large video walls, my thoughts went back to 1979 when I was operating an ammonia plant with pneumatic controllers and no DCS. The wall above the controllers had a mimic panel that depicted the complete process flow diagrammatically. This depiction covered the whole control room wall between the controllers and the ceiling, so it was large and easy to see. The motors and pumps had running lamp indications in the panel. For 300 control loops, we had about 200 hard wired alarms located between the controllers in sets of 20.
See a concocted image of a mimic panel located above pneumatic controllers similar to the one I had used below:
The modern control room I visited looked similar to the one below, with large video walls:
I was recollecting the progress in instrumentation - from pneumatic control systems to electronic to DCS without video walls and now DCS with video walls. - back to the past!!!!
Technology can and will always be an enabler only and as long as human beings exist, human errors will continue...take for instance the modern day DCS. We have so many alarms that inundate the operator during plant upsets, that vendors now sell alarm suppression software! Why do we need that many alarms in the first place???
One important philosophy in Process Safety - KEEP IT SIMPLE AND DON'T FORGET THE PAST!!
Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"
See a concocted image of a mimic panel located above pneumatic controllers similar to the one I had used below:
The modern control room I visited looked similar to the one below, with large video walls:
I was recollecting the progress in instrumentation - from pneumatic control systems to electronic to DCS without video walls and now DCS with video walls. - back to the past!!!!
Technology can and will always be an enabler only and as long as human beings exist, human errors will continue...take for instance the modern day DCS. We have so many alarms that inundate the operator during plant upsets, that vendors now sell alarm suppression software! Why do we need that many alarms in the first place???
One important philosophy in Process Safety - KEEP IT SIMPLE AND DON'T FORGET THE PAST!!
Contribute to the surviving victims of Bhopal by buying my book "Practical Process Safety Management"
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