For all those who attended the ACRNA Conference 2024 at the Langham Hotel in Melbourne (and enjoyed Shane Jacobson’s after dinner entertainment) the one word I would use to describe the conference is… “GREAT!” A very enjoyable two days were spent with our Control Room “tribe” exploring and sharing control room trials and tribulations around the conference theme of PEOPLE, PROCESS and PRODUCT.
Malcolm Wells started by giving us some perspective on how trivial our industrial control room problems can be – I’ve personally never had to quell rioting Papua New Guinea police officers!
Hamish Duff reinforced our growing relationship with the Australian Radio Communications Industry Association (ACRIA) by presenting state-of-the-art on all things radio communications
ACRNA’s own Claudio Cardile and Sam Mackenzie (both management committee members) gave us their perspective on Efficiency and Cybersecurity in the control room, while Natasha Thomas spoke of SICE (“see-thay”?) and cutting-edge control technologies.
After lunch, Paola Gonzalez educated us on implementing change at the DTP Traffic Centre, Mark Holmes gave his annual Circadian address on effective control room lighting, and Matt Rigano presented on a fancy new control room at Energy Queensland.
Then Dr Simon Rosalie had a very interesting presentation on control room change from a human cognitive perspective, Jill Collins of Transurban told us how Alarms Management improved control room operators workday, and John Chidgey on MkIII of Origin’s BCCR re-design.
Whew! All of this with wonderful MC-ing but very suspect dad-jokes of our very own Lacey Waller.
How nice was it, after a day full of presentations, to have a drink on the lovely Langham hotel balcony overlooking beautiful Melbourne on a sunny spring afternoon? Followed by many laughs by the hilarious Shane “Kenny” Jacobson.
Day 2 started with the ACRNA Annual General Meeting where all office bearers were confirmed (President=Paul Lewis, Vice-President =Trevor Franz, Treasurer/Secretary Gary Botley and Operations Mai Vang-McCormack). We then embarked on the traditional control room site tours followed by an informative debrief. We wrapped up with Russell Kronenburg’s excellent workshop on control room engagement.
I trust you enjoyed our 2024 conference as much as I did – please let us know by filling out the conference survey that was emailed on 28 October. I hope to see you at other ACRNA events throughout the next 12 months.