New era of control room design

Digitalisation and the Internet of Things offer unprecedented opportunities for industrial automation, process optimisation and preventive maintenance. While this development will reduce the number of personnel needed for routine work at factories and in the field, it will also create new needs and tasks for remote monitoring and controlling.

The increase in the significance of control room work can also be seen elsewhere. 24/7 control, command and management work are becoming commonplace in societal contexts such as alarm centres, traffic control and maritime supervision. The delicate situation in world politics also puts an emphasis on similar tasks in a military context.

Modern control room work must be efficient, free from errors and effortless and requires staying alert and being able to react quickly. Traditional control room design involved developing facilities and the equipment and furniture needed in the facilities, whereas the future working environment is seen as an extension of the user. Ergonomics plays an important role when work equipment and tools integrate with the user. Both physical devices and virtual user interfaces need to work reliably and intuitively.

The requirement for efficiency is not limited to the work of control room operators. Next-generation control rooms are mobile plug-and-play solutions that can be quickly and easily moved, deployed and serviced. The solution is provided by compact, industrially manufactured control units – often built into standard-sized sea containers – and various integrated workspaces.

ED Design has designed working environments for demanding professional use from the very beginning. We have designed ergonomic, user-centred control room workspaces as well as integrated furniture, user interfaces and supplementary spaces for the process industry. Our recent collaboration with Morehouse, among others, represents the next-generation solutions. The collaboration resulted in integrated operator chairs for the Comm7 Rapid Deployment Command Center.