Cognitive engineering and functional safety technology for reducing risks in hazardous plants

Cognitive engineering is considered nowadays as interesting multidisciplinary domain that focuses on improving the relations between humans and the systems that are supervised and operated. The industrial automation and control systems (IACS) in hazardous plants are increasingly computerized and perform various safety functions. These are designed and implemented according to the functional safety concept. The objective is to maintain high performance / productivity and reduce various risks related to identified hazards and threats. An approach is proposed to apply selected cognitive engineering methods for verifying the design of the functional safety technology implemented in given hazardous plant in context of defined safety functions, operator interfaces, communication means and procedures. The methodology developed might be applied for functional safety management in life cycle of industrial hazardous plants and oil port terminals.