SCADA refinery
A refinery mimic diagram: valve states and pressure on one screen, alarm acknowledgement in two clicks — from the control desk to the phone.
Open the live prototype scada.foxdim.ru
A SCADA/HMI prototype for an oil refinery. A single diagram of wells 1Р and 3Т carries 52 valves: 19 open, 32 closed, one in alarm. The operator must see the whole picture at any moment and get from an alarm signal to the faulty valve in seconds.
Why we took it on
Classic SCADA screens are overloaded: tiny labels, colours without a system, a diagram that doesn't fit the screen, and nothing usable on a phone. The cost of a mistake for an operator is high, so I worked backwards: first I defined what must always be visible — the medium, the state, the control mode, the summary — and only then drew the diagram around that minimum.
What blocked — and what changed
What blocked
- The diagram doesn't fit the screen and an alarm can end up beyond its edge.
- The medium in a pipe and the state of equipment can't be read at a glance.
- Finding the right object among dozens of units and nodes takes too long.
- Away from the desk the diagram is unusable, and an alarm doesn't choose its place and time.
What changed
- The diagram fits the screen and zooms with the wheel, the +/−/fit buttons and dragging.
- The gas and methanol pipelines are coloured by medium, a valve shows its state and mode — “Д” remote, “Р” manual; pressure sits in tags.
- An object tree with search by name; the chosen diagram opens in a new tab without closing the current one.
- A mobile layout with bottom navigation — Home, Monitoring, Reports, Alarms, More — and an alarm counter on the tab.
How I worked
- 01
What the operator must always see
I defined a minimum that never hides at any zoom level: the medium, the valve state, the control mode, pressure and the diagram summary. Everything else sits on a second level.
- 02
The diagram language
Line colour is the medium, the symbol is the valve type, colour and caption are the state. The legend sits next to the diagram and uses the very same marks.
- 03
Plant structure
A “unit → node → well” tree with search and tabs of open diagrams: the operator switches between objects like between browser tabs.
- 04
Alarms as a separate loop
Drive failures have their own section with the actions “On diagram” and “Acknowledge”; the counter is visible from any screen.
- 05
One system, two sizes
The same interface rebuilt for the phone: the summary turns into chips, the tree into a tab dropdown, navigation moves to the bottom.
Screens that move the work
Mimic diagram of production wells
Open units sit in tabs on top, the diagram fills the screen. The gas pipeline is yellow, the methanol one purple; valves show their state — open, closed, drive alarm — and the mode “Д” or “Р”. Pressure is in tags: about 16 MPa at the well. On the right the summary “19 open / 32 closed / 1 alarm” with the update time, and the legend. A hint at the bottom explains control: a click toggles the valve, the diagram zooms with the wheel and buttons.
- Medium is line colour, state is the valve symbol
- Diagram summary with the time of the last update
- A control hint is always on screen
Plant objects
The “Objects” panel — search by name, a filter and a tree: units, vacuum distillation, catalytic cracking and reforming, hydrotreating, isomerisation with nested nodes. The chosen object opens in a new tab — the current diagram stays where it is. This is the light theme, made for the day shift.
- A new tab instead of replacing the diagram
- Search by name in a single field
Active alarms
The section gathers drive failures that need acknowledgement. The row reads “Drive failure: valve ОК2 (1Р)”, with the unit and well below. Two actions side by side: “On diagram” leads to the valve, “Acknowledge” confirms the alarm. A bell with a counter stays in the header on every screen.
- First see where, then acknowledge
- Alarm counter in the header
Process units
The home screen is a set of unit cards. Each shows whether a diagram is connected: “Diagram not connected” or “5 objects · diagram available”. One press on “Open →” leads inside.
- Diagram readiness is visible before opening
The diagram on the phone
Dark theme, tabs of open diagrams in a dropdown with a counter, the summary as chips “19 open · 32 closed · 1 alarm · updated”. Bottom navigation: Home, Monitoring, Reports, Alarms with a badge, More. Zoom by buttons and pinch.
The outcome in numbers
- The diagram reads at a glance and is always visible as a whole: medium, state and mode live in one symbol.
- From signal to action it takes two steps: “On diagram” and “Acknowledge” — no tree search.
- One interface works on the desk and on the phone; the prototype is ready to be tested with operators.