Fountainhead Control Rooms launches mission-critical performance group

Fountainhead Control Rooms has launched a new Mission-Critical Performance Group to help industrial and mission-critical operators design how people, procedures and technology work together before a control room is built. The group is led by veteran consultant David Lee, whose background spans automation standards, operator performance and control room design.

Why it matters: - Control room failures often start before construction, when alarm philosophy, decision rights and training are set. - Fountainhead Control Rooms is trying to address those issues earlier, which can reduce costly design mistakes in mission-critical operations. - The new group expands Fountainhead beyond consoles and AV integration into operational performance planning.

What happened: - Fountainhead Control Rooms announced the Mission-Critical Performance Group (MCPG) on Oct. 7, 2026. - David Lee, CEng, FIChemE, joined Fountainhead as Principal Consultant and will lead MCPG. - Fountainhead is based in Norcross, Georgia, and designs and builds control room consoles, technical furniture and integrated AV systems.

The details: - MCPG provides human systems engineering for complex control rooms. - The group focuses on how operators, procedures and technology perform together, not just on room construction. - Lee has about 40 years of industry experience and roughly 35 years of work in automation standards bodies. - MCPG's service areas include operator performance and workload studies. - MCPG also covers alarm management, from philosophy development through rationalization. - The group offers high-performance HMI philosophy, style guides and screen design. - MCPG aligns control room and console design with ISO 11064. - The group also handles fatigue risk assessments and fatigue risk management plans. - Additional services include work team design, organizational change management and client training in HMI, alarm management, operator performance and control room design. - MCPG's work is grounded in ISO 11064, ANSI/ISA-18.2, IEC 62682, ANSI/ISA-101.01 and ANSI/API RP 755. - Clients can engage MCPG through workshops, gap analysis of an existing facility, standards development or detailed design for new or upgraded rooms. - Because MCPG sits inside Fountainhead, its recommendations can carry through to turnkey delivery, including consoles, technical furniture, full AV integration and raised access flooring.

Between the lines: - The launch suggests control room buyers are paying more attention to human factors, alarm behavior and staffing structure. - Lee's standards background gives Fountainhead credibility with industrial clients that operate under strict regulatory and engineering expectations. - The offering ties consulting directly to hardware delivery, which may appeal to customers trying to avoid gaps between design intent and buildout.

What's next: - Organizations planning a new control room, an upgrade or fixes for alarm, HMI or staffing problems can contact David Lee at david.lee@fountainheadcontrolrooms.com or 678-506-7335. - Lee also brings experience from the specialty chemicals, oil and gas, mining, pulp and paper, power generation and transmission, and pipeline sectors. - He has delivered projects in about 40 countries. - Lee serves on the ISA Executive Board as Standards and Practices chair. - He is slated to become ISA President-Elect/Secretary in 2027 and ISA President in 2028. - Lee is a member of ISA standards committees including ISA-18.2, ISA-101 and ISA-106. - Lee also serves as a U.S. Technical Advisory Group expert to IEC SC65 on IEC 63303. - Fountainhead says the new group is designed to help customers get the operational side right before the first console is installed.

The bottom line: - Fountainhead is betting that control rooms work best when human performance is designed in from the start, not patched in later.