Prevention by Automation

What hazards can be prevented by automation?

Manual operation might fail when the manual operation requires fast, complicated calculations.

How?

Examples

Process control - when a complex procedure is required to respond properly to a deviation in the production rate.
Aviation safety - 40% of the accidents between 2001-2009 involved deficiencies in the crew recognition of the airplane.

Error prevention by automation

An important topic in error prevention is that of defining the level of automation Automation can prevent certain operator errors , but on the other hand might disable the operator's control in exceptional situation, when human intervention is required (control dilemma ...). Therefore, the system should identify exceptional situations, notify the operators when they occur, and enable the operator to switch to manual operation. To avoid errors classified as automation addiction, automation should be enforced in exceptional situations and in emergency, if the automatic prediction of the operator's activity is of an immediate, unavoidable incidence.

Apply automation to reduce the operators mental load.

Process control - in normal operation, certain risk variables may be checked, to make sure that they are in a predefined range of safe values. The machine computer calculates the deviations in production and other performance variables, and checks the source for these deviations. When the source is due to slight values of the operational conditions, the computer can compensate for it by changing the values of the parameters that affect the production and the performance variables. This method is commonly implemented in Statistical process control ( SPC )
Aviation safety - free mental load of the crew. For example, one of the duties of the Boeing 747-200 during the flight was to balance the fuel between the various tanks. This duty became redundant in the more advanced 747-400 airplane, as the pilots could do it now with the airplane computers.

Manual operation might fail in extreme conditions.

Examples

Transportation - navigating in storms, fog or heavy rain or snow
Command and control, when fast decision making is required, because a risk develops rapidly

Manual operation might fail when the proper operation is different from the one to which the operators are accustomed (see control paradox ).

automation is required when manual operation might fail in extreme conditions. automation enables to mentally and physically free the operators from auxiliary tasks, and deal with tasks which are more critical for the system operation. Automation is particularly important in situations in which the operators are liable to err, when they are required to be fast, and to act under pressure.

Operational parameters

Automation problems are sometimes attributed to wrong setting of the operational parameters. For example few segway accidents are attributed to this kind of problem.

The operational parameters should be validated during the system integration and on-site testing.