September 9, 2009

Walt

Congratulations to Prakash Kumar, Principal Engineer -Advanced Process Control, at the PETRONAS Maleka refinery in Malaysia. Kumar's insights regarding the potential for better HMI designs to improve operator performance earned him this week's iPod Touch prize for forum participation! Check out posts from Kumar and dozens of other process automation professionals as we continue to define a new standard in usability for the next generation of process automation technology. Join the discussion, contribute a comment or new idea, and be this week's iPod Touch winner!
» Visit the Process Automation Usability Project

This Week's Usability Poll
Levels of Cyber Security Implementation Vary Widely
Respondents to this week's Usability Poll indicate a divergent level of sophistication and variety of approaches to protecting their systems from cyber incidents.

• 42% say they use a "multi-tiered approach including firewalls, DMZ and edge-protection devices."
• 33% of survey respondents "leave control network security to their IT departments."
• 17% "rely on physical isolation of control networks."
• 8% say they "haven't had any incidents to date, so system protection has not been a priority."

Visit the Usability Project home page to register your vote!

Usability Forum
Shouldn't Process Automation Technology Be Easier to Engineer, Implement and Maintain?
The community reacts to the assertion that perhaps it should. Application complexity and the desire to keep costs down work against better usability, as do vendors' vested interests in keeping the systems proprietary. Still, contends one contributor, usability has improved in recent years: "You should have tried it 25 years ago!"
Register your comments. Design Forum
What Processes Can Advanced Control Not Reach?
One forum contributor comments that some applications that would benefit from model-based control are too fast, or the technology implementation too complex for advanced process control (APC) to be practical. "I am interested to know how common this problem is," he says. "I would really like to hear about applications that you wish you could use APC on, but cannot do so currently because of the speed, cost and complexity of traditional approaches to advanced control."
Share your perspective. Maintenance Forum
What Tools Work Best to Help with Calibration?
Sure, today's field devices are increasingly capable and sophisticated, but what about the technicians who have to deal with them? This forum contributor asks what's working to ensure that moderately skilled technicians can keep up with increasingly complex calibration tasks. What's been your experience?
Share it here. Got an Idea? Win a New Apple iPod Touch!
Submit an idea for how to improve the usability of process automation technology using Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, or in one of our Usability Forums. Best suggestion of the week wins an Apple iPod Touch!
» Visit the Process Automation Usability Project. Follow the Process Automation Usability Project on Twitter
Follow the Usability Project on Twitter at www.twitter.com/usabilityproj. Use Twitter hashtag #PAutoUP to automatically share your perspectives to the Usability Project home page. This email was sent to: wboyes@putman.net This email was sent