In the recent SPE Live withJohn de W and John Mac; Eric van Oort asked "There has been a lot of talk about the issues with human factors and HMI's, but there appears to be limited real progress on resolving these issues - dialogue rarely goes beyond stating "it is an issue". What is the latest on this (e.g. the strengths of combining automation's sensitivity with human specificity) to benefit well construction, and how are DSATS, ART etc. helping to make some real progress?"
We responded: Hi Eric, good question. There are actually a few topics here, among them the physical real-estate needed for any HMI (we can’t just add yet another screen for the Driller to ignore), the actual content of any HMI, and the “management of change” issue. We tend to lump all of these along with situational awareness into “human factors.” What we can say is that these issues are being addressed by individual companies as they bring systems to market. The workable result is often considerably different than what was originally proposed, covers perhaps one aspect rather than the integrated system, and is delivered by an individual player rather than the industry.
We have a lot to learn from other industries that are farther along in development than we are as one major operator discovered when they pulled midstream experts into their automation initiative. It is certainly an area where DSATS could provide some insight.
What do you. think, is it time for DSATS to garner insights from other industries and develop a guide for Human Factors (or better still Human Systems Integration)?
We made a strong start in the DSA Roadmap with the Human Systems Integration section - https://dsaroadmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/11-of-14-Human-Systems-Integration-190531.pdf
Have a read before posting a response!
“We are becoming aware that the major questions regarding technology are not technical but human questions”
Peter F. Drucker, 1967
Ties well to the article we posted earlier on Human factors and the ironies of automation. Cognitive tunnelling is a real issue.