Abstract
We studied the use of time-related information, with and without prediction, to support human operators performing moni-toring and control tasks in the process. Based on monitoring and control techniques used for Project Management we developed a display design for the process industries. A simulated power plant was used to test the hypothesis that availability of predictions along with information on past trends can improve the performances of the human operator handling faults. Several designs of dis-plays were tested in the experiment in which human operators had to detect and handle two types of faults(local and systems wide) in the simulated electricity generation process. Analysis of the results revealed that temporal data, with and without prediction, signifi-cantly reduced response time. Our results encourage the integration of temporal information and prediction in displays used for the control processes to enhance the capabilities of the human operators. Based on the analysis we proposed some guidelines for the de-signer of the human interface of a process control system.