I was sorry to miss the PAS User Conference last week. Just could not be in three places at the same time. But I had a chance to chat with CEO Eddie Habibi over the weekend, watched a few tweets from David Greenfield of Automation World who was there, and received this release.
The comments and direction discussed in this release shows PAS going in exactly the right direction. We just keep building on the shoulders of those who came before. The tremendous generation of engineers who paved the way for digital control. Then came intelligent devices and controllers that became information servers–automation.
Now is the stage in manufacturing/production for looking at the plant–and even the enterprise–more holistically. Despite doom and gloom in some quarters about automation driving people out of jobs, this also shows the exact opposite. We are now entering the era of empowering people.
PAS declared itself “The Human Reliability Company” reflecting the company’s commitment to developing products to empower the human factor at the plant facility–the operator.
Making PAS “The Human Reliability Company” represents the vision of PAS CEO and Founder, Eddie Habibi, and was revealed at the PAS Technology Conference in Houston, Texas.
This direction reflects the vision of Habibi who noted in his keynote address, the increasingly advanced complexity and interdependency of the systems necessary to run a process plant, and pointed out that the most common cause of accidents now is not failure of the automation system or plant equipment but rather human error.
“Human Reliability is the practice and process of preventing human error,” Habibi said, “and Situation Awareness is the embodiment of Human Reliability.”
“The time has come to focus on preventing human error,” Habibi said. “The goal is to address human reliability with the same vigor as asset reliability. Think of it this way: a pump failure is to asset reliability as human error is to human reliability. Preventing human error requires focus on the human element.”
Habibi noted that our cultures and our plant operations have been all about “faster, better, more.” Human Reliability, he said, “is the next big opportunity for improved ROI, but we need to do it faster, better, more…and safer,” he said.
PAS’ development of the Automation Genome and its products such as Integrity and PlantState Suite help simplify access to critical information and the management of the industrial automation infrastructure. PAS’ technology vision supports the movement toward Human Reliability by focusing on Situation Awareness for the plant operator, engineer, and maintenance and production staffs.
“Improving Human Reliability maximizes profitability and safety,” Habibi said.
