Who We Are

The Center for Operator Performance is a diverse group of industry, vendor, and academia representatives addressing human capabilities and limitations with research, collaboration, and human factors engineering.

Our mission to raise the performance level of our operators and improve Health, Safety, and Environmental effectiveness is accomplished through:

  • Openly sharing knowledge and ideas
  • Including vendors in research decisions
  • Teaming with leading human factors researchers and universities
  • Collaborating with a focus on HS&E

We understand the operational realities that operating safely requires redundancy of many components and operating competitively requires lack of redundancy of the human component. These complexities keep plant operators at the center of improving operational performance and at the center of our efforts bringing research insights into process plants.

All current employees of member companies are encouraged to sign-up and suggest research topics and participate in our current work.

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Companies who can join the Center for Operator Performance include refineries, chemical plants, pipelines, power plants, mills and suppliers. The Center is operating company driven, with research chosen for and by the operating companies. We invite you to become a participating member.

Explore

Since 2007, the Center for Operator Performance has been investigating how to improve operator performance in process control industries through manipulation of operator-system variables: Alarms, Graphics, Automation, Procedures, Workstation, Skills/Knowledge, Training, Workload, Job Design, and Organization. Download one of our ready-to-use Tools, or, if you want more background, visit Projects to review our comprehensive research library.

Get Involved

The more involved our members are, the more we all benefit. Join us at our next event to learn, promote a project, and network.

News

Attention: Teaming Initiative Project Closeout and Introduction of the Teaming Toolkit Webinar

December 10 at 9:30AM ET.

 

The December Teleconference was held on Wednesday, December 18 at 11am - 12pm ET.

Please join us in congratulating our new Vice Chairs, Jenni Dickson, Koch, and Al Schmaltz, FHR!

The November Teleconference was held on Wednesday, November 20 at 11am - 12pm ET.

The COP Member Meeting will be held on April 29 - May 1, 2025, in San Antonio, TX/Hybrid.