Is Counting the Number of Control Loops a Valid Technique for Estimating Operator Workload?

Many control system manufacturers have assumed that there is a direct correlation of the number of control loops of a process and the resulting workload of the operator controlling the process. During reinstrumentation projects, control system engineers exert a tremendous amount of effort in balancing the number of control loops between control board operators. Intuitively, from a hardware standpoint, this line of reasoning makes sense; as the operators instrumentation responsibilities increases, so should the number of things the operator must monitor and adjust. The more things the operator must monitor and adjust, the more time he must spend doing so, and the higher his workload. Similar to adding weight to a laborer to increase his physical workload, adding instrumentation to a control board operator will increase his mental workload. If this line of reasoning is correct, then there should be some way to objectively measure this effect. For example, one would expect that as the number of control loops increases, the amount of time the operator spends monitoring and adjusting the control system would also increases by a proportional amount. The question is, what parameters of operator performance should be measured to find this effect, and also, what parameters should be used to gauge operator workload? Since 1983 Beville Engineering has been investigating factors that influence workload of petrochemical plant operators. During this period of time, Beville Engineering has developed a database of operator performance, which is a collection of observations of petrochemical plant operators performing their duties. The database has recently been used to investigate whether or not any relationship exists between the number of feedback control loops under a distributed control system operators control and control board operator activities. The relationships which were investigated were the number of control loops versus: 1) # of alarms per hour, 2) communication contacts per hour, 3) # of display changes per hour, 4) % of operators time engaged in job activities (direct time), 5) % of time operator spent interacting with DCS, and 6) # of controller adjustments per hour. All of the process unit data used in the comparisons was taken during normal, steady-state operating conditions. Linear regression analysis was used to investigate whether of not relationships existed between the number of control loops under an operators control and the board operator activities. The measure of a relationship between two variables is R-squared. A direct 1-to-1 relationship would produce an R-squared value of 1.0, or -1.0 for a negative relationship. An R-squared value of 0.0 would indicate that no relationship existed, and a graph of the two variables would be a straight line. For a relationship to be useful for making predictions, most statisticians would agree that an R-squared value of 0.6 or higher is needed. Figure 1 is the first correlation between the number of control loops and the number of alarms per hour. A relationship between these two parameters indicates that as the number of control loops increases, the number of alarms per hour the operator must respond to also increases. The R-squared value of 0.34 does, in fact, indicate that relationship exists, though the relationship is moderate. Figure 2 contains a comparison between the number of control loops and the number of communication contacts the control board operator made during the sampling. This indicates that as process complexity increases (represented by the number of control loops), the control operator communications also increase. In this comparison also, the R-squared value of 0.31 indicates that a moderate relationship exists. Figure 3 is a comparison between the number of control loops and the number of display changes per hour the board operator made. This correlation would indicate that as the number of control loops increases, the operator must make more display changes to access the instruments. The analysis obtained an R-squared value of 0.2, indicating that a relationship does exist, but the relationship is weak. Figure 4 is a comparison between the number of control loops and the percentage of time the operator was observed engaged in job related activities (direct time). A correlation between these two variables would

indicate that as the number of control loops increases, the amount of time the operator is engaged in job related activities also increases. The R-squared value of 0.15 indicates that it is an extremely small relationship. Figures 5 and 6 are comparisons of the number of control loops versus % of time the operator was observed interacting with the DCS and, number of control loops versus the number of controller adjustments per 4 hours. With R-squared values of 0.07 and 0.05 respectively, neither comparison contained a relationship. In short, there is no relationship between the number of control loops and the amount of time the operator spends on the control system, nor is there a relationship between the number of control loops the operator is controlling and the number of controller adjustments the operator makes per hour. From the data gathered by Beville Engineering, the number of control loops does appear to be correlated to some parameters of operator performance which contribute to operator workload, but that all of the correlations are very weak. In the absence of other objective data, using the number of control loops as an estimator of operator workload is probably better than nothing at all. However, there are other ways to obtain objective workload estimations. New techniques to measure workload which have been developed by the aerospace community hold much promise. The two most prominent techniques are the USAFs Subjective Workload Assessment Technique (SWAT), and the National Aeronautical and Space Administrations Task Load Index (NASATLX). Beville Engineering has used these techniques in the petrochemical industry to gauge control board operator workload in combination with the observational techniques described above. There are probably numerous reasons why the number of control loops is a poor estimator of the factors which contribute to and are an indication of operator workload. Operator workload is a multifaceted construct which is influenced by numerous variables. Some additional factors that influence operator workload include: process stability, level of process automation, training/experience of the operator, quality of control system-human interface (displays/alarms), and crew interactions/communication activity. To attain a valid estimate of control board operator workload, the best approach is to measure a number of parameters of operator performance and employ the new workload assessment techniques.

Figure 1 & Figure 2

Figure 3 & Figure 4

Figure 5 & Figure 6