Ergonomic field studies in a nuclear power plant control room

The safety and availability of sociotechnical critical systems still relies on human operators, both through human reliability and human ability to handle adequately unexpected events. This paper focuses on ergonomic field studies of nuclear power plant control room operator activities, and more specifically on the analysis of verbal communications within control room crews during micro incidents in normal operation. We show how operators use verbal exchanges to produce continuous, redundant, and recursive interactions to successfully construct and maintain individual and mutual awareness, which is paramount to achieve system stability and safety. Such continuous interactions enable the operators to prevent, detect and reverse system errors or flaws by anticipation or regulation. This study helps in providing cues for the design of more workable systems for nuclear power plant operation.