Aspects to Consider For Designing a High-End Ergonomic Control Room
To set up a control room an array of factors need to be considered such as the operating practices, equipment selection, furniture choices and working environment. Apart from these considerations, care should be taken to see that the operators are equipped with the right equipment for enhancing their efficiency.
Room Architecture
The layout and size of the room are important considerations while designing a control room. The room should be big enough to accommodate the required equipment as well as the nonelectronic equipment like operations manuals, clipboards, log books, documents etc. There should be enough space for installing keyboards, telephones, controllers, writing areas and much more.
Apart from the size, the shape of a control room is also important. The rectangular shape of a room offers the most options for console, display and equipment positioning. It is best to avoid rooms with sharp angled columns or with the support walls. The material of the ceiling is another important factor to consider. It should be made of a material with high reflectance for improving the light distribution all through the room for minimizing the energy cost.
Furniture
The next most important consideration while designing a control room is the furniture. You can either invest in advanced command or control Lab Furniture or consoles. Some of the ‘control room’ designers even believe that office furniture and consoles can be used interchangeably but there is an array of advantages of using consoles over the basic ‘office furniture.’ Consoles are designed in such a way that they can handle high equipment loads. They can even handle multiple levels of cable management permitting the installers to separate the low and the high voltage wires and offers wire management to user-interfaces.
CPUs and Servers
For maintaining a consistent environment for the operators, there should be a separate room for equipment for housing the servers, CPUs and the wall mount racks and cabinet equipment. The rack-mountable PDU Mounts to the equipment racks directly for controlling and monitoring the power to the specific switches and servers for helping in balancing the power loads. Thus such aspects should be considered while designing a control room. This would remove a high source of heat from the processors and the disk arrays. Moreover, a separate room is ideal for storing equipment in a safe and cool environment.
Thus, it is important to consider all the above-mentioned factors while designing a control room so that it effectively serves the purpose it is built for.