Human-system interfaces: Rationale for user center iterative design towards decision support in the mining industry

摘要

Nowadays, mining operations are truly large-scale, complex technological systems, heading towards fully automated ventures. Yet, the automated/tele-operated mines will still require human operators, whose roles, however, will undergo a dramatic change from hands-on, manual equipment control to the supervisory, management, exception-based remote operation. The operators will be required to adapt quickly to new, unforeseen, changing system demands and operational conditions; they will have to handle the 'non-designed' operational emergencies within the continuously changing mining environment as the systems? intelligence might have design limitations due to multitude of possible operational scenarios. Therefore, it is of high important that the operators, who in their new roles will be required not only to remotely operate equipment in exceptional circumstances but also to solve problems and make critical decision at the workstation level, are facilitated with the proper interface that would provide sufficient information to make correct decisions rapidly and efficiently without unwarranted loss of productivity and/or compromise of safety.In this paper, we argue that providing data in itself will not be adequate to enable future operators to fulfill their roles. We propose that a decision support system, taking into account human information processing and cognitive abilities, should be developed alongside the technological developments and that the information presented to the operators supports their decision making processes. We advocate the application of the User Centre Design, a process during which the needs, wants, limitations and the behavior of the end-users are addressed at each stage of the design process including testing and implementation.The paper presents three case studies: User interface design and implementation, which improved the operator's performance; an application of the iterative design process, which led to the redesign of the existing user interface and an example of the user interface tested by equipment operators during remote operation of mining equipment