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Human-centric control rooms

Iritron and Oculus are redefining how modern industries operate by combining their expertise to deliver next-generation integrated control and operating centre solutions.

The modern control room has evolved. With Iritron and Oculus working in partnership, companies now have access to state-of-the-art operating centres designed to do far more than monitor equipment; they drive optimisation, enable real-time decision-making and empower operators with actionable data from across their enterprises.

“As modern industries move more towards automation, sensors and software, it may come as a surprise that one of the biggest performance differentiators today is not just how efficiently a central control room works, but boils down to a humble locker, the distance to the bathroom or where you put your coffee,” notes Reghardt Rautenbach, director at Oculus.

Human-centric design, he notes, is quietly transforming how South African operations function, with measurable improvements in safety, efficiency and staff wellbeing. “You can have as many sensors and controls in place, but at the end of the day, if the person behind the screen cannot do their job, your plant is not going to work. That is why we design everything around humans.”

While Iritron’s role in these control rooms is to provide end-to-end automation solutions, including the design, engineering and integration of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, process control platforms, and real-time data analytics, Oculus brings a unique lens to control room projects, focusing on the people who use it.

Designed for people

From sight lines and acoustic absorption to ergonomic desks and personal lockers, this design philosophy has shown results. “You see a better stay-at-work rate and a drop in sick leave rates with well-designed control rooms,” said Rautenbach. “That, at the end of the day, converts into improved profit.”

“In the past, control rooms were rigid and functioned solely as technical hubs to manage machinery and processes,” adds Neels van der Walt, head of sales and business development at Iritron. “Today, with systems like ours, we can consolidate multiple outdated and fragmented control rooms into a single, central hub, drastically improving efficiency and streamlining operations. Information can be flexibly viewed on large screens and operated from a single mouse and keyboard, which gives the operator freedom.”

These include best-in-class high-performance graphics, international ergonomic standards (ISO 11064), and smart alarm management to reduce information overload. “High alarm loads, alarm floods and nuisance alarms all lead to ineffective alarm and event management. According to the ISA 18.2 standard, the average alarm rate per 10 minutes should be smaller than or equal to one. Leading advanced alarm management software includes key performance indicators to monitor alarms. It includes tools and reports to assist organisations to optimise alarms, which should form part of the implementation of any modern control centre,” notes Van der Walt.

Addressing industry needs

“In our experience, we have found that many operations still have multiple control rooms at their facilities,” Van der Walt states. By moving to a centralised control centre environment, he notes, scarce technical specialists and resources can be more effectively used in a centralised environment that covers multiple operations.

“From a software perspective, modern systems make it easier for disparate sources of information to be consolidated. Third-party systems can be integrated to allow for one single version of the truth. Even remote sources can be made available by technology today, such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT),” he adds.

“Industries should adopt these solutions,” he notes, “if they want to bridge skilled labour gaps by centralising expertise, increasing operational visibility and agility and ensuring that resources are optimally utilised.”

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