Conferences are coming...

Just a bit of news that CCD staff are presenting at four conferences in the next few months

First of all, Adam Parkes is presenting on our SAMMIE work at a seminar at IMechE titled "Human factors in 3D - humans in engineering design".  If you want to go, get your skates on as it is next week (2nd October).

Then David Watts will be talking about consolidation of control rooms at the IBC Control Room Design conference in London on 5-7 November.  If you want to go to this, we can offer a 20% discount by following this link

David Watts is also chairing a conference on High Performance HMI (human machine interfaces) in December 2012, again in London.  This will include topics around alarm management, human error, data visualisation and interfaces of the future.  If you would like a discount on attending follow this link.

And a bit further out, CCD will be out in force at the 4th International Rail Human Factors conference in London next March.

Future Cities and Smart Cities

The UK Technology Strategy Board has launched a competition for a Future Cities Demonstrator.  The project will look at technology for integrating city systems as an enabler for economic development, enhancing quality of life and reductions to the environmental footprint.

CCD did an internal project last year looking at the future of cities and how it might impact on how the systems were integrated and controlled - see the slides below.

In the project we tried to look at some of the trends impacting on the city of the future in particular how changes in transport demand and working patterns might services become more localised.

One of the interesting challenges in the Future Cities project is how to integrate the data and how to use it - what is automated and what might require a human to interpret the data and make decisions.

Future cities and the control room of 2030

View more PowerPoint from David Watts

London Ambulance fallback failure

Some readers may have seen the article in the London press about the London Ambulance Service having some problems with maintaining effective control during fallback when there was a fire in their control centre.

The fire was an electrical fire in a UPS.  The fire meant that operations had to move to the fallback control room in Bow.  However the report into the events revealed a number of failings in their procedures, when they got to the fallback control there were problems with glare on screens and problems with technical language being used in the control room that hampered communications.

Clearly operational effectiveness during this event were significantly degraded and LAS has learnt some harsh lessons including deciding to keep their fallback control room "live".

This event features many common issues for control centres when looking at fallback arrangements.

• The procedures for moving out and setting up the new control are rarely exercised or tested.  
• The switching of the technology is not well designed to be reliable.
• It is difficult to determine the duration of the fallback and therefore to what degree the fallback control room has to match the main control room functionality.
• The fallback control room often suffers from a lower level of design - it's often not really designed at all.

Many of these issues arise as a fallback control room is seen as a facility which is rarely used and therefore investment is made elsewhere.  As LAS perhaps found out, this is fine until you need it and find it doesn't work or doesn't work well enough.

Report into Heathrow Winter Resilience

The recent enquiry report into the response at Heathrow airport to the recent winter snow raised many interesting points about communications in a complex control environment and responding to difficult situations.

The report highlighted the problems in managing real-time communications between different groups and functions all trying to collaborate.  We often see this in our control room design work - the resource required to disseminate information is often too much so only partial information is shared.  We have been looking at a number of projects recently where shared systems automatically enable visibility of information held by other functions so reducing this problem - providing communications in parallel rather than serial.

This kind of information sharing is important for different teams to retain the "big picture" overview of the situation, one which is often changing rapidly.  Good situational awareness is critical for the right decisions to be made at all levels of crisis response.

The report also flagged some interesting issues about the physical location of controls in relation to the events going on (many of the control rooms involved had no visibility of the airfield to give them that important contextual information) and in relation to each other.  Co-location of control rooms has its problems but it can be effective in short-cutting some of the communication flows.

One final point of note was the importance given to managing passenger needs during the crisis. Inevitably the focus of many operations during events like this is to focus on restoring the service as quickly as possible.  But if all resources are directed on this then the operation ignores supporting the passengers during this stressful experience.  It was good to see recommendations covering passenger welfare both in terms of provision of regular, up to date information and in providing temporary facilities in the airport.

Are you consolidating your control rooms?

The issue

The current economic climate is forcing many organisations to look at the consolidation of control rooms as a way to save money.  This might mean operating with fewer control rooms and moving to a more centralised structure; or it might be mergers / co-locations with related functions or organisations. The challenge is still to get more from less.

There are some very real cost savings that can be made. Fewer control rooms is likely to result in fewer staff controlling the same infrastructure; fewer rooms can reduce the property portfolio of an organisation. Consolidation can also bring about sharing of back-office functions and reduced maintenance costs.

Technology is often the enabling force.  More powerful systems and automation are allowing more infrastructure to be controlled by fewer people. As the nature of "control" changes to increased monitoring and occasional intervention, new technology is changing the way the growing volumes of data can be acceptably presented to operators.  Communications technology is allowing more remote operation and connections to be made between related control functions - this can be a way of providing more resilience in the system.

The challenges

One of the major challenges in delivering control room consolidation is managing the change for the staff. Resistance can risk successful project delivery and acceptance.  One key is to get staff involved in the process.  But it's also important to understand the culture of the organisation and how things get done.

Overcoming the loss of local knowledge is often critical as control moves further away from the infrastructure under control.  It is also often an important issue for the public who may interact with the control room.

There are very human issues around this change in the operator role.  So careful attention has to be paid to workload management, job design, selection and the design of systems interfaces and support tools.

The important factors are first, paying the necessary consideration to the human issues when making this kind of change; and secondly, a joined up design based on operational needs that considers control & comms systems in parallel with the control room itself.

For more detail, download our white paper from www.ccd-design.co.uk/p/White-Papers/

7/7 inquest - control room design failings?

Recently at the 7/7 inquest we saw evidence given that shows up failings in how the ambulance control room operated at a time of high stress and pressure.

See some of the press coverage: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12598785

Some examples from the evidence given:

• There was only one person logging calls and vital information was written on scraps of paper (the inference being that some of these were lost or the information not utilised)
• The whiteboard that was being used to log the events was positioned too high for the person acting as scribe such that they could only write on the bottom half.
• Two people allocated key roles in the management of the incident hadn't been trained in the "gold command" procedures
• The transfer of staff from normal operations to the Gold command room was delayed as the system required staff to logout of one workstation before logging in elsewhere; presumably they weren't aware of this.  This caused a backlog in calls.

In our experience, these kinds of problems are not as rare as one might hope but can be designed out with the right approach.

Often not enough focus is placed on how control rooms deal with these major events as they are so rare - but doing so increases the risk of failings such as those identified at the inquest.

At the very least, events such as this are prominent reminders to other services to re-examine how they do things and that lessons can be learnt to improve systems and processes and get the design of these control rooms right. 

The right approach is to integrate the design of the processes & procedures with the control room design and the development of the control & communication systems.  All too often they are dealt with seperately which leaves these kinds of chinks in the overall incident management system.

What is the future for Fire & Rescue Service control rooms?

The cancellation of the FiReControl project announced by the Government at the end of December, has thrown the future of Fire & Rescue Service control rooms into chaos. Many Services in need of modernisation of their control rooms had held off in the knowledge that FiReControl would deliver new purpose built regional centres and a new national integrated system.

The Government has just announced a consultation exercise to look at the options for the Fire Service.  In the context of the tough economic climate in the public sector we see three potential choices:

1. Upgrade existing control rooms and systems – which may require significant investment
2. Consolidation, mergers or co-location with other emergency services such as Police or Ambulance to make more effective use of existing buildings and systems
3. Life stretch – making the existing facilities last longer in the hope that the economic strictures will change or regionalization will reappear in a future project

New control rooms are likely to re-use or expand existing buildings rather than incur the cost of new build. Some Fire & Rescue Services have let their existing rooms dilapidate or have to vacate their current premises in anticipation of moving to the new centres so will have to take some sort of action. Projects must ensure that the right working environment is provided and the adaptation of existing structures usually brings constraints. The right expertise is needed to ensure that good design decisions are made to adapt the existing structure to provide an ergonomic work space.

There is also the question of what will become of the now built Regional Control Centres? Will the Government consider tri-services controls for that area or possibly sell the buildings off for use by other agencies or even for a totally different use like call centres? 

Some services may have to consider upgrading their call handling and mobilisation systems.  This is where the FiReControl project fell down and where other previous projects have had problems.  Our key message for success is to understand and map the user requirements at an early stage, make sure that the system delivers those and get the end users involved throughout the development and testing of the system.  Going for the cheapest solution may not be a great idea either however tempting in the current climate.

Perhaps the main challenge will come where the Fire & Rescue Services merge or co-locate their control rooms with those of their neighbours to get operational benefits or cut costs. These projects will have to carefully consider the design of the enlarged control room and the systems that will be used – but what is usually forgotten or inadequately addressed is the management of the change that will take place . All control room design projects involve change but where organisations come together the need to address the socio-technical issues is higher.

One of the major challenges here is to assess the impact on team working and things like the retention of local knowledge. At a detailed level, there will probably be changes in processes and procedures, in management and supervision. But there may also be changes in operational philosophy and the fundamentals of “how things get done”. Organisations are different so developing this new common way of working is often hard. The key is how the project takes the staff on “the journey” and involves them in the change – without this the chances of getting their buy-in and commitment to the change is low and resistance increases the risk of project failure.

Extending the life of control rooms

Many companies have had to make significant cutbacks meaning that investment funds for new facilities are scarce or non-existence. But in safety-critical environments there is a need to ensure that systems and controls are maintained at maximum operating efficiency. As a result, many organisations are looking at how they can extend the life of their existing assets and make their operations leaner.

To tackle this challenge, we've launched a new ‘Control Room Life Stretch’ service to show organisations how to extend the life span of their control centres by spending only where there is real value. This is a fixed-cost audit to identify where the weaknesses and risks lie and where investment is required or savings can be made. It then makes recommendations based on cost/benefit.

Economic realities cannot impact on safety or operating efficiency in control rooms, but many organisations have had to put their investment plans on hold in the short-term. With ‘Life Stretch’ we aim to help those organisations which need to increase the lifespan of mission critical environments like control centres. We have developed the product following demand from existing clients who need to prevent system obsolescence, reduce the risk of operator error and ensure their facility can cope with increasing demands or changes in the external world. The process can help reduce ongoing costs such as maintenance as well as improve overall performance.

Following an in-depth audit by one of our consultants, we produce a ‘Life Stretch Plan’ which illustrates options, associated costs and resources required.

You can find out more at www.ccd-design.co.uk/p/News/a/Extending-the-life-of-control-rooms/

CCTV & changes for control rooms?

We recently spotted two pieces in the press about changes to the way security control rooms might operate.

The first was the new system for enabling members of the public to monitor CCTV images in shops on behalf of the owner and receive a reward for successfully spotting criminal activity.  Perhaps this does reflect the fact that many CCTV cameras are not watched by someone in a control room and only provide a means to record criminal activity in the hope that a prosecution can follow.  There do seem to be some dangers associated with this, as identified in the article, in particular the lack of training of those doing the watching.  But interesting never the less.

The second item was on the use of microphones in support of cameras to detect gunshots on the streets.  We don't know anything about the technology here but have looked at how you might present the information back in the control room and support the operator in getting visual images of the right area and then making good decisions. We await the outcome of the trial with interest.

International Control Room Design Conference - our thoughts...

Nearly 100 delegates and half-a-dozen exhibitors represented the leading practitioneers in control room design at the recent ICOCO conference held in Paris.  And we were there in force with four presentations and an exhibition.  If you want to see more on what we talked about, visit our website at http://www.ccd-design.co.uk/p/Conference-Presentations/

What did we learn from the event?  

Firstly that there remains a strong commitment to a user-centered design approach - which is just how we like it! This underlines how ISO 10064 has become the de-facto standard in the area and its role in ensuring that ergonomics is a central factor in design.

Secondly, the use of large overview displays in control rooms continues to present challenges. The message that "content is king" was discussed by a number of the presenters and was even reinforced by the display manufacturers! These expensive displays continue to be provided in control rooms even when there is little in the way of an operational rationale - the marketing department often holding the power.

Finally, that technology in control rooms continues to move at a fairly slow pace.  It was left to our own Adam Parkes and a very few others to talk about emerging technologies and the potential that they might unlock.

Overall, it was great to finally have a good technical conference to be able to discuss and debate some of the issues and questions we see in our daily work...and to learn from others how what we can do better in the future.

Preventing human error even in TV control rooms

There have been lots of examples recently of the impact of human error in control rooms especially in the US.  

However, there are implications even in non-safety critical control rooms such as in TV broadcasting.  It seems sometime ago now that ITV bungled the World Cup football going off to an ad break whilst England were scoring one of their few goals in the tournament.

It now seems that they are taking a low-tech approach to try to prevent it this human error happening again -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/7960203/ITV-covers-up-control-room-buttons-to-avoid-repeat-of-World-Cup-goal-fiasco.html

The reality in control rooms when it all goes wrong

For those of us working in the control room design industry it is often easy to forget the reality of what happens to the operators when it all goes wrong and disaster happens.

For a reminder, read this account of what happened in the control room when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded - http://tinyurl.com/3ahwsxo

The external image control rooms can give...

The news channels have all been covering the further deepening of the crisis at BP - the latest being the photoshopping of the images of the control room dealing with the leaking oil well to make it look like they were busier and that the photos were taken more recently it raises the question of to what degree should control rooms be designed to give the right public image?

All of us involved in designing control rooms have experience of putting large video walls in that we all know are largely for show.  These walls mean that photos taken of the room or visitors coming in see a control room that has visual impact and the look of "being in control". 

Also an interesting issue is designing control rooms for peak resourcing or maximum manning levels.  This means that often the control room can feel quite empty and therefore give a quite different perception.

The interior design also plays a part.  We always talk to our clients about the image that they wish to portray and words like hi-tech, clean, modern, cutting edge, etc frequently emerge.  Demonstrating that again, they want the image to be clear that they are in control and are using the latest technology to do so.  We've also recently talked on the blog, and will do more so, about the influence of the film industry on what clients are looking for - we expect this to continue.

So the challenge seems to be designing control rooms that meet their main purpose but also give the right image - without anyone having to resort to doctoring images later on

Multi-touch interfaces in airport traffic planning

We've been spending some time recently looking at the potential for the use of multi-touch interfaces in control room design.  It seems to be a strongly emerging technology in the consumer market but so far hasn't made so much impact in the world of command and control.

In digging around we came across this video from American Airlines where they were looking to introduce a multi-touch system to replace a rather antiquated paper-based system in an airport traffic planning environment which plans the movements of planes on the ground.




For those of you attending the International Control Room Design Conference in Paris this October, look out for the paper from Adam Parkes on multi-touch interfaces - there may also be a sneak preview of the paper later in the summer on the CCD website.

CERN LHC smashes beam collision record

Having worked on the CERN LHC project to design the control room, we somehow feel part of the project (despite the fact that we understand absolutely nothing about the physics!).

So it's great to see the programme advancing and meeting its objectives - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10430234.stm

The Value of Mock-ups in the Design Process

We have always believed in the value of the full-scale mock-up trial in the design process. In our toolkit of design methodologies it offers an un-rivaled way of getting end users & other stakeholders involved. It allows them to visual and spatially see the design in a way that many struggle to with drawings: for example, it is often difficult to visualise the size of a space or the distance between objects. It allows them to interact with the design in real-time: when we design a control room for example, they can pick up a desk and move it; if we want to change the desk we can re-shape it if we've used cardboard as our material.

No CAD or other tool offers these benefits in a way that is as quick or as cheap to deliver. Whilst sometimes sceptical at the outset, almost all our clients see and agree the benefit of the approach when the exercise is completed.

Now it seems we are not alone! In this article (http://tinyurl.com/2wuwbbq) Airbus gained significant benefits in the design of the XWB fuselage through the use of mock-ups. It allowed them to avoid the mistakes of previous projects which had relied on CAD modelling and for testing future assembly processes.

The lesson seems to be that we have a variety of design tools at our disposal.  The skills is to bring the right ones in for the right purposes and rarely to rely on one method.

CERN LHC produces record breaking collisions

We're delighted to see the success yesterday of the LHC to take a great leap forwards in its experimental programme.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8593780.stm


What is even nicer for us is to see the video of this ground breaking event taking place in the control room we designed!