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U.S. Department of Energy
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Graphical user interfaces: Setting the standards

Conference ·
OSTI ID:192094

There appears to be a lack of industry standards as far as the Graphical User Interface (GUI) area is concerned. Every vendor/supplier of GUI systems professes to have a product that complies with the industry norm. Because of the newness of the very concept of Full Graphics, it is very difficult to judge to functionality and performance of one vendor`s GUI product against another`s. Though the authors agree that every customer`s needs are different, there should be a minimum set of guidelines to help a prospective customer when buying and implementing a SCADA system. This would help to eliminate certain customer-vendor differences that invariably appear as a project nears completion. In this paper, the authors have attempted to address issues such as: impact of DA and DSM on GUI systems; ease of operator usability of the GUI systems, etc. A graphical user interface has become of one of the primary tools to facilitate distribution automation. Distribution automation constitutes a growing portion of the SCADA budget for any utility. As a result, this increasing automation in power distribution systems has demanded openness to a system. In addition there will always be the need for expendability of the system. An ideal system would be one where no component in the overall system would be cast in concrete. The various functionalities of the system should have the capability to adapt to a user`s ever-changing requirements. Demands for modularity and flexibility have tremendously affected the Graphical User Interface aspect of distribution operations. Distribution operations require more complex information systems because of the sheer volume of data that needs to be displayed on an operator`s/dispatcher`s console. In a SCADA/EMS/DA system, data has to be collected from different applications and presented in a manner that requires minimum data redundancy and has coordinated data entry/maintenance procedures.

OSTI ID:
192094
Report Number(s):
CONF-940129--
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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