Social Interaction Simulators for the Increase in Human Reliability in the Design of New Industrial Plants

Abstract

Industrial projects today should be executed as soon as possible, taking into consideration current standards, corporate technical specifications, best practices and other information. Industrial plants are becoming more complex, and therefore so are the projects. The number of teams involved is large, as are the number of documents generated and manipulated. Consequently, it becomes necessary to develop new tools that are agile and that can be used by managers and designers. In order to increase the reliability of the human design of new refineries, a simulator of social interactions has been developed, based on serious games, to be used in the design process, in the management of new projects and in the training of new operators. Into this simulator are inserted the PDMS database of the new project, the database of 3D digital human models, and criteria established by the required standards. With this simulator one can evaluate new plants, test human interactions to the operation of valves and other components in the industrial area, test collective work in specific scenarios, as well as simulate maintenance work. One can quickly test different scenarios and different design alternatives. The simulator stores the actions performed by the avatars or virtual operators, which routes were taken, communications exchanged and strategies adopted by each operator, in order to incorporate them in the training for novice operators. According to the results obtained, these simulators contribute to the compliance of the project, and to reduce time and errors during the design process. They optimize control in implementation and validation of the project, and also contribute to the training of new operators.