In this paper our key aim is to elaborate on the understanding of technological developments in relation to people and work. We present details of our research into ergonomic approaches to control centre design and operations and include an extract from a case study from the paper and pulp industry.Work in control rooms is becoming a focus point for the success of many different types of organization in e.g. business, trading, energy, environment, and government. From our on-going research in many types of the latest control centres, it is clear that ergonomic approaches to control centre design are becoming more prevalent. It is also clear that as control centre tasks become more complex, so the levels of competence and necessary education of operators has increased. Nowadays, control centre tasks cover a larger perspective than the controls rooms of the past. It is also evident that creative development tasks have become integrated into control centre work. We structure this paper into two parts. Firstly, we consider the control room and its related computer system beyond the traditional tasks of process monitoring and supervision. Secondly, we expand our ideas of how principles of human factors can be used in the development of control room design to incorporate the human elements such as supervision, training and learning for new tasks, new work scenarios, and process development. In this latter discussion, we describe the use of the control system for optimizing and developing the existing systems and processes.