Digital Twins Have Never Been Merely for Visual Appeal: See How Redcoast Designs HMI for Chinese Factories

When most companies embark on digital twin projects, their first focus tends to be on whether the 3D scenes are realistic, the equipment models are detailed, and the visuals look high-tech.

For the process industry, however, the greatest value of a digital twin has never been about “drawing” the factory — it’s about helping operators “read” the factory more accurately.

If the DCS system is the brain of the factory, then the HMI (Human-Machine Interface) is the operator’s eyes.

The problem with many of today’s factories, however, is precisely this: equipment is getting smarter and data is becoming more abundant, yet operators are finding it increasingly difficult to quickly spot risks amidst the flood of information.

Therefore, the real problem that digital twins need to solve is not visual presentation, but industrial cognition.

This is also the core focus that Redcoast has consistently pursued in its digital twin projects: how to make digital twins the next-generation industrial HMI, rather than the next-generation industrial big screen.

I. The Biggest Misconception in Digital Twin Implementation: Treating the Display System as a Production System

When many companies build digital twin platforms, they tend to prioritize:

• 3D modeling precision
• Scene restoration fidelity
• Animation display capabilities
• Big-screen visual impact

Indeed, however, it is still the operators who are actually responsible for making production decisions.

If a digital twin cannot help operators detect anomalies faster, locate problems faster, and take action faster, then no matter how exquisite the 3D scenes may be, they remain merely a display system.

From this perspective, the problem with many of today’s factories is not a lack of digitalization — it’s that they are still following the information organization logic of the traditional DCS era. When these DCS systems were being built, their screen design logic often came from the design institute.

The core approach was: putting P&ID drawings directly into the DCS. This led to a typical set of problems:

Problem 1: Information Overload

A single main screen might contain:

• 300 to 1,000 data points
• Dozens of pipelines
• Hundreds of valves
• A large number of real-time values

The operator’s brain must constantly search for target information. However, human information processing capacity is limited under high-stress conditions. Studies show that:

Under abnormal operating conditions, the number of information items a person can simultaneously attend to typically does not exceed 5 to 9.

Yet many DCS screens far exceed this range.

The result:

• More and more data,
• But less and less information.

Problem 2: Color Abuse

In many plants, you’ll find:

• Red pipelines
• Green pipelines
• Yellow equipment
• Blue backgrounds
• Rainbow-style flow diagrams

It may look visually appealing at first glance, but in reality, it seriously violates the principles of human factors engineering.

Because colors are intended to serve the following functions:

• Alarm indication
• Status differentiation
• Risk level identification

When everything is colored, an actual alarm becomes inconspicuous.

This is known as: Color Saturation Failure.

Problem 3: Animation Overload

Many systems are overloaded with:

• Flowing material arrows
• Rotating equipment animations
• Flashing icons
• Dynamic backgrounds

The purpose is often to make the visuals look more high-tech.

But international studies show that: Continuous animation significantly increases operator cognitive load.

Especially under abnormal conditions: animated information competes with alarm signals for attention resources, ultimately slowing down anomaly recognition.

II. How World-class Factories Use HMI to Reshape Operational Cognition

The value of ISA-101 is not just about standardizing interface design. At its core, it answers one fundamental question:

What exactly should the operator see?

And this is precisely the question most easily overlooked in digital twin implementation. Because a digital twin is not about simply adding more information — it’s about restructuring information.

Since 2015, ISA-101 has gradually become the mainstream standard for HMI design in the global process industry.

Its core philosophy is remarkably simple:

• Operators don’t need to see all the information.
• Operators need to see the most important information.

This is the fundamental difference between modern HMI design and traditional DCS screens.

The Four-level Architecture Proposed by ISA-101

Level 1: Overview Layer

Enterprise-wide production panorama.

Focus on:

• Production output
• Energy consumption
• Key KPIs
• Risk status

Used by management personnel.

Level 2: Area Layer

Device operating status.

Focus on:

• Section health
• Critical equipment status
• Alarm trends

Used by shift supervisors and senior operators.

Level 3: Unit Layer

Specific process unit.

Focus on:

• Process variables
• Control loops
• Critical deviations

Primary working layer for operators.

Level 4: Detail Layer

Engineering diagnostic interface.

Focus on:

• Valves
• Instruments
• Interlocks
• Parameter configuration

Used for fault analysis.

The problem with many domestic projects, however, is precisely this: cramming all the Level 4 information into the Level 2 display.

This leads to information explosion.

III. Behind High-performance HMI: What Digital Twins Should Really Deliver

Many people, when first seeing a DCS screen from a world-class plant, are often taken aback: “Why does it look so ugly?”

The reason is that the mainstream HMI approach internationally follows the High Performance HMI design philosophy.

Its key characteristic: default gray

Normal status: all displayed in gray.

1. Color is used only for abnormal conditions.

For example:

• Red: Danger
• Yellow: Warning
• Orange: Abnormal trend

Therefore, alarms stand out prominently when they occur.

2. Emphasize deviations.

Display:

• Current value
• Target value
• Deviation value

Rather than a mass of irrelevant data.

3. Trend matters more than value.

Modern HMI emphasizes looking at trends rather than just numbers.

Because accidents often come from the change rate of variables, not the variables themselves.

Many companies assume that digital twins mean:

• More colors
• More animations
• More real-time data

Indeed, the direction taken by world-class plants is quite the opposite. A digital twin is not about making the screen more complex — it’s about making it easier for operators to spot anomalies.

Therefore, High Performance HMI and digital twins are not at odds. They share the same goal: making critical information actively emerge from the mass of data.

IV. Alarm Flooding: The Most Serious Yet Most Overlooked Problem in Domestic Plants

According to the International Society of Automation (ISA) statistics:

Under normal conditions, an operator can effectively handle approximately 1 alarm per 10 minutes.

In an excellent plant, the alarm rate is fewer than 6 per hour.

However, the actual situation of many domestic devices is:

• Hundreds of alarms per hour
• Thousands of alarms during startup and shutdown

This is a classic example of an Alarm Flood.

As a result, operators gradually develop alarm fatigue.

Genuinely critical alarms are overwhelmed among the flood.

A Case Study of a Refining and Petrochemical Enterprise

During a process disturbance, more than 1,200 alarms were generated within 10 minutes.

The operator was unable to identify the root cause, ultimately leading to an unplanned shutdown of the device.

A post-incident analysis revealed that genuinely critical alarms accounted for less than 2% of the total alarms.

V. Digital Twins Should Not Remain Confined to Visualization — They Must Evolve Toward Cognitive Decision-making.

With the advancement of industrial AI, the HMI is undergoing a fundamental transformation.

• Traditional HMI: tells you what happened.
• Next-generation HMI: tells you why it happened, what will happen next, and what should be done about it.

This also represents a key direction for the convergence of digital twins and industrial AI.

Redcoast Development Thinking: From “Visualization Interface” to “Cognitive Decision-making Interface”

Redcoast has long been deeply engaged in the digitalization of the process industry. Through our project implementation practice in digital twins, industrial AI, and predictive maintenance, we have observed that: most plants today do not lack massive amounts of collected data — what is truly scarce is the core capability to transform raw data into effective business insights and support sound decision-making.

To address this critical industry pain point, Redcoast will redefine the next-generation HMI human-machine interaction system for Chinese plants from three major dimensions.

1. Human Factors Engineering Design System Based on ISA-101

Not a simple drafting specification.

Rather, it establishes:

• Operating logic standards
• Alarm classification standards
• Navigation hierarchy standards
• Decision presentation standards

So that the display truly serves production decision-making.

2. Global Situational Awareness Driven by Digital Twins

By integrating real-time data with process models.

Operators see not just equipment status.

But also:

• Process health
• Risk propagation paths
• Energy efficiency trends
• Device operating boundary

3. AI-driven Cognitive Decision-making Support

The system does not just tell the user: “What happened.”

It also tells the user:

• Why it happened
• Where the risks lie
• How to respond

Achieving the transformation from a monitoring center to a decision-making center.

Conclusion: Digital Twins are Not for Displaying the Plant — They are for Understanding It.

Over the past two decades, many domestic plants have invested heavily in building automation systems.

However, at the HMI design level, the mindset remains stuck at:

• The more information, the better
• The more dazzling the graphics, the more advanced

In fact, a truly excellent DCS display is never the most visually stunning — it is the one that enables operators to spot risks within 30 seconds and make the right decision within 1 minute. The core of future digitalization competition in the process industry will no longer be data collection capability.

A digital twin has never been merely about visual appeal. For the process industry, its greatest value lies not in building a more realistic virtual plant, but in constructing a smarter production cognition system.

In the future, an excellent HMI will no longer be just an information display window — it will become an industrial decision-making gateway that integrates digital twins, industrial AI, and predictive analytics capabilities. Whoever enables operators to see risks faster, understand risks earlier, and respond to risks more accurately will possess the true core competitiveness of the next-generation smart plant.

And this is precisely the direction in which Redcoast continues to explore the convergence of digital twins and industrial intelligence.