Situation Awareness in Process Control Field Operations

The University of Toronto and Cameco Corporation propose to undertake a research project to adapt a measure of situation awareness to process control field operations. Situation awareness, or “knowing what is going on”, is intuitively linked to job performance in nuclear and chemical facilities. That is, if an operator “knows what is going on”, he can be expected to perform the job well, and vice versa. Thus it is important to have valid measures of situation awareness. A recently completed study shows that situation awareness can be measured in control room operator activities with the Process Overview Measure. Further research is needed to adapt the Process Overview Measure to field operator activities. If successful, this would provide a new tool for evaluating equipment, procedures and training for field operators. Conducting such evaluations is a key component in the licensing process for nuclear facilities.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Greg Jamieson

Student:

Mario Iannuzzi

Partner:

Cameco Corporation

Discipline:

Engineering - mechanical

Sector:

Oil and gas

University:

University of Toronto