Westinghouse approached the MIDAS project to help them compare their current paper-based procedures with their new computer-aided system called COMPRO. The MIDAS group developed two scenarios based on the same faulted steam generator comparing the paper procedures with projected COMPRO procedures. The Westinghouse-MIDAS project showed that two scenarios in a new domain can be developed in the space of several months with minimal staff commitment.

The working group in the control room consists of a Senior Reactor Operator and two Reactor Operators. During an emergency procedure the senior operator reads the checklist items from either the paper notebook or from the computer screen. The other operators read the requested values from the dials and gauges located around the control room.

The paper scenario in MIDAS was based on the actions in a video tape of a faulted steam generator at Westinghouse's Pittsburgh simulator. The COMPRO scenario was based on the same emergency as the paper scenario with the actions extrapolated from the design specifications for COMPRO and times based on similar human-computer interactions. This allows MIDAS to be used earlier in the design process, before the man-in-the-loop simulators are built. The emergency procedure used for the MIDAS demo is one of the least complex and most practiced of the Emergency Procedures. Even so, we were able to demonstrate several examples of potential memory load problems for the operator. Westinghouse is continuing to work with the MIDAS system to analyze other procedures for their nuclear control rooms.