MODE CONFUSION
The control did exactly what it does in the other state.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which a system acts according to a state the person is not aware it is in, so their actions are correct for the situation they believe themselves to be in and wrong for the one they are actually in.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
MISSING
Which state is in force is available only to someone who thinks to ask.
TIME PRESSURE
SHORT
The action is quick and practised, which is why it is not checked.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
ASYMMETRIC
The states do not cost the same when the wrong one is acted in.
OPERATOR STATE
DEDICATED
The person is operating and believes they know what they are operating.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
MEDICALA device acts on a setting from an earlier programme and the clinician acts on the one they set up.
MOBILITYA control does one thing in one drive state and another in the next, reached for the same way in both.
MANUFACTURINGA pendant behaves by run state, and the state was set by someone else earlier in the shift.
ENERGYA console acts on a configuration loaded before the current operator came on.
AI EXP.A tool applies a setting the person is not aware is active and the result reads as the tool being wrong.
CONSTRUCTIONPlant responds by selected function, and the selection outlives the person who made it.
04 WHERE THIS IS SURFACING
This surfaces wherever one set of controls serves more than one way of working. The indication exists and is not looked at, because nothing about being in the wrong state prompts anyone to check which state they are in.
What stays unresolved is how a state makes itself felt rather than displayed — an indicator is something a person has to consult, and consulting it is exactly what someone in the wrong state has no reason to do.