Fault Diagnosis: Human Performance in the Digital and Automation Context

Diagnosis is a cognitivelyCognitively difficult task for operators working in the control rooms of complex industrial systems. The complexity of contemporary industrial systems increases with the application of digital and automation technologies, making fault diagnosis of such systems even more challenging to human operators. This chapter proposes a framework for human factors research on fault diagnosis, including diagnosis models and strategies, factors influencing human diagnosis performance, and methods to improve diagnosis task performance. As a general idea, automation should facilitate, help, and even collaborate with human operators to perform fault diagnosis.