Helping to Ease the Experience Gap

by Jim Cahill

Emerson's Pete Sharpe, an advanced automation consultant, was recently interviewed for a magazine article on the subject of process manufacturers' aging workforce. Manufacturers primarily in North America and Western Europe are feeling this loss of experience due to retirement.

Pete indicated that the reoccurring theme he hears is the loss of deep process knowledge. This knowledge, possessed by experienced operators, maintenance technicians and senior automation engineers is knowing when something in the process is not quite right, like when a measurement reading looks off, or when the process behavior is not the same. As seasoned operators retire, manufacturers feel this loss of experience most during non-normal conditions like startup, shutdown, or emergency situations.

Problems take longer to diagnose and resolve which can lead to less stable, more dangerous conditions. A recent refinery accident is one example where the problem diagnosis did not occur soon enough. You don't ever hear about most incidents but they certainly cost manufacturers money and often result in close calls that don't actually shut down a unit.

Pete discussed a couple of things automation suppliers are doing to address these issues. The first is improved operator training simulators, which I have written about in earlier blog posts. In this environment, less experienced operators can be challenged with operating problem situations so that they can improve their ability to diagnose the process and respond more quickly to abnormal situations.

As technologies continue to advance, more diagnostic capabilities are available in smart field devices and other plant assets. These devices can provide early warning about their own health and about the surrounding process. These predictive capabilities improve the ability of the maintenance organization to prioritize and respond to critical equipment alerts. Emerson's Abnormal Situation Prevention (ASP) algorithm uses process statistical signature data to give less experienced operators more time to react to abnormal situations and more diagnostic information to point to the root cause of the abnormal situation.

The final advancements that help to close the experience gap are advanced control technologies. As the technology has gotten increasingly scalable and easier to deploy in control systems like the DeltaV system, more and more processes can be operated as units and not as collections of loops. These APC technologies operate a process unit within its equipment constraints, at its most economical point. The operator's role changes from constantly adjusting individual loops to setting targets and constraint limits. APC applications are especially useful for process units that are tricky to run by less experienced operators--where many of the loops interact with one another or the process is highly constrained.

These advancements help ease the learning curve for future operators, maintenance technicians and automation engineers. On the positive side, today's engineers and young operators are nearly all computer-literate, so they can make good use of the modern tools and work processes that come with today's control infrastructure. This computer-savvy generation is more likely to adapt to computer-based control systems and modern fieldbus architectures. In addition, automation suppliers like Emerson are helping to ease this knowledge gap by having people like Pete and the other advanced automation consultants available to work with process manufacturers.

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June 19, 2007 in Abnormal Situation Prevention, in Education, in Operator Training | Comments (2)

Mynah Simulation Consultant Joins Blogging Fray

by Jim Cahill

The folks at Mynah Technologies with their Mimic simulation software, virtual I/O network gateways, PLC I/O interfaces and host of drivers for the DeltaV system continue to build conversations through their forums and experts blogs within the forum. Recently Dr. Aleksandr Muravyev a simulation consultant created a Mimic Distillation Modeling package to simplify software acceptance testing and operator training around distillation columns.

Dr. Muravyev joins the automation blogging fray with this post about this distillation modeling package. If you have experiences with this product (or even if you don't) feel free to join in the conversation. It's a forum so you'll need to register first.

I did ask the Mynah folks if the forum software they are using supports RSS feeds so I could get these updates coming to me instead of going out and seeking it. It does and they will soon be adding this functionality.

That's a great thing as some RSS readers like Google Reader support both regular and mobile viewing. It means I can keep up with the automation and technology bloggers whenever a have some spare moments. From playing with the various RSS readers, I seem to be gravitating to using Outlook 2007's embedded RSS reader for my Emerson intranet-based RSS feeds and Google Reader for external RSS feeds. How about you?

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February 19, 2007 in Distillation Column, in Operator Training, in Simulation | Comments (4) | Trackback (0)

Transferring Operator Experience to Future Operators

by Jim Cahill

As members of the generation known as "Baby Boomers" begins to retire, so too does quite a bit of experience among process manufacturers. A recent article entitled Knowledge continuation at your company from ReliabilityWeb.com said it well:

Over the next 10 - 15 years the baby boomers will be leaving the industry in droves. As with every other aspect of their lives they will create a ruckus when they do so!

In this case they will be taking out a large amount of the experience, knowledge and skills that they have built up over a lifetime.

A study by the American Petroleum Institute indicated that experienced operators can have a positive financial impact of $350,000 USD per year, per operator, over less experienced, average performing operators. These improvements come from the ability to understand the patterns in the process which can lead to unscheduled downtime, to diagnose these, and to take action before the shutdown occurs. Also, experienced operators can take corrective actions before the product being produced goes out of specification which can create waste and/or rework.

You may remember Jeff Hackney, DeltaV OTS Project Manager in our Educational Services organization from an earlier post.

Jeff had a great perspective when I ran the ReliabilityWeb story by him. I'll not attempt to improve on his words:

Just like families today struggle to pass on their lineage and family history every industry faces the challenge of conveying the knowledge of their experienced work force to those who will replace them.

Some may have learned to avoid the Aunt who pinched your cheek or laid a red lip stick kiss on your cheek through first hand experience and embarrassment but if you were lucky you had an Uncle or older cousin warn you ahead of time.

Experienced operators are no different in that they have acquired a unique perspective on their processes and honed the actions required or warranted for specific process conditions. A key attribute of a training program is not only its ability to distribute new data to students efficiently and effectively but to also facilitate the transfer of knowledge from experienced to novice operators.

DeltaV OTS is an excellent tool that is part of a complete training program that not only introduces new operators to their process and operational environment but serves as an identical plant platform experienced operators can convey “tricks-of-the-trade” the “new guy” may not have been exposed to while under the wing of the experienced operator during operational system indoctrination.

As we all know, the operational system can’t be forced toward a trip condition to facilitate showing the new guy how to recognize, respond and correct the condition before the trip occurs. DeltaV OTS provides that identical system to maximize the training effort and transfer of knowledge.

Well said, Jeff!

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June 27, 2006 in Operator Training | Comments (0) | Trackback (0)

Building Operator Experience

by Jim Cahill

Process manufacturers are modernizing their automation to increase the efficiency of their operations. A key requirement is skilled operators who are essential to effectively use the technologies these new automation systems deliver.

An October 2005 study of chemical manufacturers by the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive indicated that 37% of plant incidents could be categorized by incorrect operator actions.

Also, operator actions can have a big effect on process variability which can impact throughput, product quality, energy usage, and downtime. These all have an impact on the profitability of the operation.

Another issue many process manufacturers face is the expertise of their operators to effectively run the plant. In many countries with aging populations, the experience levels of operators are dropping as many reach the retirement age.

To help manufacturers address these issues, Emerson Educational Services has developed a number of solutions to help better train operators. These solutions include web-based operator training, formal classroom training, packaged fixed price Operator Training Simulation solution with customized curriculum, and full plant-wide simulation with customized curriculum for operator training.

I spoke with Jeff Hackney, DeltaV OTS Project Manager, about the new packaged Operator Training Solution called DeltaV OTS Express. Jeff told me DeltaV OTS Express is an affordable solution that provides operator training specific to the actual process for a fixed price.

DeltaV OTS Express is sized to target a specific critical unit, area, or process. With a combination of software and services, the operator training is built to be identical to live plant system configuration and graphics. Jeff, his team, and the global Ed Services team start with the manufacturer's DeltaV configuration database and graphics.

The DeltaV OTS team also uses DeltaV Simulate and the MiMiC process simulation software and customized courseware to create a training environment with process specific conditions, training scenarios and assessments to teach the operator process and skill-based knowledge. In addition to the simulation model, courseware and software, the PC hardware is included. The training solution is ready to go when it arrives and helps operators learn and refresh their knowledge of the process over time.

The DeltaV OTS Express is built with flexibility in mind to meet the financial and logistic needs of the customer. The base offering can be expanded in order to deliver simulation-based training to an entire class of operators if needed.

Jeff stressed that this is not a high complexity, high cost, high fidelity model which is designed to model the process as closely as possible, but rather something that helps the operator learn how to better operate and understand the process. By employing the actual automation system configuration and graphics, the DeltaV OTS Express solution can be delivered in one to three months, instead of a more typical one to two years for the more complex, high fidelity solutions.

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March 20, 2006 in Operator Training | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)