Written by Hampus Suomela - contact us to discuss further
The pandemic has affected us in many ways – both in how we behave in private but also our routines at work. An outbreak is extra sensitive in a control room environment. The impact of having a complete shift team contract a virus – but also with great risk of transmitting it to the next shift team will have big consequences for all of us.
Most of the operations performed in control rooms is necessary to keep the society going. The tasks performed is due to cyber security and safety reasons is nothing that you could/should control from your home office.
Control room operators help us to get energy to our homes, food on the table and clean water in our taps. When those operations cannot be operated – we have problems that goes way beyond an EBIT-result. The operators are our heroes, and they must be protected with all measures that can possible be taken. It is our duty to make sure their work environment is safe.
At the same time operators has become much more aware of their personal health. They understand the importance of a safe and high focus on their workplace which they also share with other operators in a shift team. To just have a height adjustable desk is no longer good enough to encourage the best operators to work for your company. There must be a completely new way of looking into the future operator needs and an environment that act as an enabler for well-being rather than just a desk that house a bunch of screens.
Collaboration vs Social Distancing
Collaboration in todays operation centers is key to run a successful operation. Consolidation has been a trend in designing new control rooms for the past years. Face to face collaboration ensures a quick analysis with fast and correct decisions, but studies also shows that open plan landscapes drives down face to face communication by 70%. How do we increase true collaboration to help us transfer knowledge, stimulate us and our colleagues intellectually. Compromise of collaboration or promoting collaboration to cut costs should not be overlooked.
Collaboration in a control room is key to run successful operations. Collaboration and consolidation of control rooms has been a trend in designing new control rooms for the past years. Face to face collaboration to encore quick analysis with fast and correct decisions. Collaboration also helps us to transfer knowledge and to stimulate us intellectually. We should try to not compromise on the collaboration part of control rooms.
Instead we have to ask ourselves the question on when we are most vulnerable to the greatest risks in terms of keeping distance to each other and how we mitigate those risks.
Traditional control room design has been to put as many operators as possible on a small footprint. Keeping distance would most likely be complicated during shut-downs, down-production and weekly / daily meetings such as shift hand-over meetings.
CDE has helped in designing control rooms that collaborate in real time – still being many miles apart with still maintaining emotional presence with operators working together.
Another prototype developed for a customer is the desk Wellby – having adjustable sound barrier to both keep noise down when high focus is crucial but invites to collaboration when needed. The sound absorption also acts at safety barriers in terms when we need to be extra cautious with getting viruses.
Traditional 24/7 operator desks transform into an Ergonomic Microenvironment
Another key for planning the control room is to focus on the well-being and safety of operators. This should always be a main priority in when designing control rooms. You want to give operators the best circumstances to make the best decision – especially in critical situations.
Designing a control room we would need to partly focus on the overall work environment but mainly focus on how we can improve the microenvironment for the individual operators. Many control room layouts consider the operators as a homogenic group, but they could not be more wrong. Just look within your own work team. Some work best in silence with maybe some bright light – others can listen to music and work in a dark environment. Some sit, others rather stand. Still – many layouts are designed by putting operators on a long row, vertically and horizontally, giving them no option to work undisturbed, adjust their own environment such as ergonomics, light and temperature.
Finally, the control room can lead to new problems for the operators. Sitting day in and day out analyzing data can be boring, and fatigue is a well-established problem in the control room. Therefore, it is important to inspire operators and involve them all the way in the design process.
Short Questions to Pierre Schäring, founder CDE:
What is the biggest risk when control room are designed using traditional guidelines and general practice?
Even before the pandemic the type of general practice was obsolete when computer-based control room philosophy slowly replaced by a digitalized technology approach
Which work steps can involve increased risk of infection based on hygiene and social distancing?
Shut downs involve increased risk because we need to gather all competence at one place. Shift-hand over meetings also creates increased risk – here we need to be extra cautious because we expose the shift teams to transfer infections between each other. Since this is done every day we should put effort in designing a space safe for those type of meetings.
Can breaks and shift handover meetings being held without compromising on safety and distance?
Yes, but we need to consider the distance and provide digital options.
What equipment can mean an increased risk of infection based on hygiene and social distancing?
Keyboard & mice, other technology such as shared radio, desk surface and shared facilities (toilet, pantry).
