On the Human Perception of Complex Industrial Processes

Abstract

A first attempt has been made to define the complexity of large scale systems by means of a complexity index. Curves with a constant complexity index value so-called iso-complexity curves. were made to indicate constant performance of a human supervisor while executing a particular task. The complexity index is a function of the number of subsystems to he supervised. and their possible interactions. I, aboratory experiments with a simulated industrial process. consisting of first order systems with unity gain. were executed. The results indicate that for 8 subsystems and interaction gain 0.5 the human supervisor had about equal difficulty with an increase in number as with an increase in interaction gain