Improving Operator Effectiveness Depends on Training Simulators

Overview

ARC Advisory Group often hears questions about how operator effectiveness helps the manufacturing enterprise. The answer is very basic: operator effectiveness depends on training simulators, because it is very important as the responsibility for safety, production, product quality, and protecting company production assets lies in the hands of the operator.  Operations supervisors, managers, process engineers, maintenance, and control system engineers support the operator, but in most organizations, usually only the operator is responsible for all standard operating procedures (SOP).

Process understanding is a prerequisite for effectiveness. There are many different processes for converting raw materials into finished products, so operators must understand how their own processes work. The operator must learn to cope and handle with dexterity the design constraints and construction and maintenance of the production facility with a sufficiently wide window of operational flexibility. The operators need to learn from the engineers who designed the process and built the control systems and safety systems intended to regulate it and keep it safe. Without such technical support, operators lack the foundation they need to be effective. Training simulators can be an effective way to transfer this knowledge, keep the operator updated, and help ensure that they remain on top of any situation.

This Insight highlights the important role of operators in manufacturing facilities and how vital it is to train them effectively.  Routine operations pose no challenge; it is when unexpected situations arise that an operator's mettle is tested. For this, either many years of on-the-job training or operator training simulators (OTS) are necessary to avoid accidents and other costly and potentially life-threatening risks.

Automation Improves Operator Effectiveness

Previously, when labor costs were low in developing countries, the argument was that it would be cheaper to employ personnel for all the equipment and avoid the expense of installing a process control system. Soon engineers realized that this was not a viable method to operate a refinery or chemical plant.  Today, although it varies by industry and specific processes, a modern distributed control system (DCS) operator in a process plant can deal with as many as 5,000 I/O points, depending on the degree of operator efficiency.  Perhaps a better metric is that operators in the process industry typically oversee between 90 and 180 control loops each, based on ARC benchmark data collected in many different industries.  

Industrial automation empowers operators to optimize processes. Safety systems are vigilant and can act rapidly when needed. Control loops can regulate process variables with far more precision than manual control. The modern operator is empowered with many tools and a modern DCS can let the operator visualize the whole process in great detail. The control system HMI can prompt the operator with messages and alarms when the process requires adjustments to maintain optimal conditions.

Collaboration

It is common for a facility to have a console operator and one or two field operators working as a team. Collectively, this team needs to understand and guide the process equipment to accomplish their goals.  They have SOP's to guide them, but it takes a team environment for operators to stay effective.  Operators are a valuable member of the team and operator training needs to consider how collaboration can best be achieved for meeting the company's business goals.

Millennials Replacing Baby Boomers

Many operators are in the "Baby Boomer" age group and at or nearing retirement age. The average number of years' experience for operators will decline as these experienced operators retire. While generally well educated and comfortable with technology, the incoming "Millennial" generation as a whole does not appear to have either the experience in or the respect for positions in the manufacturing or other industrial environments.  Statistics indicate that Millennials also appear to switch jobs more frequently than do the previous generation of workers.  As a result, it will require a big investment to attract and train new operators and would be a big loss if that operator then transfers to a new position (possibly in a different industry) after only a year or so on the job.

Operator Effectiveness Depends on Training Simulators

Training operators is a complex, but essential process. Experience tells us that it takes many years for an operator to reach full effectiveness. Training with simulators as part of the program is the best way to train operators quickly and program appropriate reflex action.  Exclusive use of on-the-job training for operators takes many years and can leave big gaps, particularly for infrequent operating scenarios such as process upsets, startups, and shutdowns.  Properly organized training can help prepare the operator for many abnormal situations. There is no way to prepare for every possible accident scenario, but training should include a suite of abnormal situations.

In day-to-day operations, the operator never sees these functions work. Any training program must include training on all of these special control system functions, which is the right approach for a training simulator. Situations like startups, normal and emergency shutdowns, equipment failures, and spare pump switchovers can be practiced in a safe, simulated, but realistic environment.  When abnormal situations do occur, there is great value to know how your control system is going to behave. Pilot training without simulation would be unthinkable. Nuclear operators are required to be trained using process simulators and since the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's report on Fukushima safety enhancements came out in April 2015, training for operators in worldwide nuclear plants now includes more training on abnormal situations.

When things go wrong operators can be in unfamiliar territory.  Confidence can quickly evaporate into bad decision making. We can learn a lot from major industrial accidents. The operators at Fukushima Nuclear plant faced an incredibly complex set of problems that resulted from the tsunami.  They had no training for this. There were no SOP’s to guide them. When the control system screens went blank they lost their situational awareness. They were unable to see the critical reactor coolant levels and the level of water in the spent fuel tank.  Suddenly, actions were based on assumptions and real data was hard to find. Fukushima operators made herculean efforts to stabilize the situation, but much damage was done before they eventually got to cold shutdown weeks later. It is interesting that in spite of their best efforts, the Daiichi Nuclear plant melted three reactors; while operators in the Daini plant (located just 10 km to the south) managed to save their nuclear reactors.

To be effective in abnormal situations, operators must have a fundamental process understanding and they must be able to determine the process situation even when they lose some or all of their sensors or lose the DCS HMI entirely. In a recent ARC study on operator effectiveness, respondents identified improved controls, alarming, and HMI as the best investment to improve effectiveness.

Immersive Simulators for Abnormal Situations

Newer, immersive training simulators have become less expensive with the availability of various camera, LIDAR, and GPS-based technologies that allow fast creation of 3D process models. Gaming engines can accept many common 3D file types. (There are more than fifty 3D modeling file types in common usage as CAD technology merged with gaming engines and computer graphic hardware continues to evolve). Computer graphics processing has exceeded the main computer CPU as the most powerful processor around. While it is not trivial to plan and build an immersive training simulator, the Millennial generation would find such an environment quite natural. Familiarity with X-Box, PlayStation 3&4, and Nintendo Wii, means the new generation of operators will have skills and new expectations the Baby Boomers did not have.

ARC sees immersive simulation as a strong growth area due to technology advances and the increased recognition of its value.

How Training Pays Off

When things go routinely, most operators can manage; but when unexpected situations arise, panic and loss of control can often follow. Training provides operators the knowhow and wherewithal to handle unusual situations and avert risks/accidents.  Proper training can also help the operator make better decisions and appropriate adjustments to the process during normal operations. Just a few examples of the benefits that a trained operator can achieve include:

Distillation unit: If the operator carefully regulates product purity, a lot more feed can be processed. This can have the added benefit of shifting production to products that are more valuable and reducing reboiler heat. The reboiler consumes lots of thermal energy and, in many cases, reboiler energy can be reduced by trimming excess O2 in fired heaters or fixing leaking steam traps for steam reboilers. Distillation operating pressure can be adjusted to improve fractionation efficiency and energy use. Fin Fan motors can be turned off to save energy in cooler weather. And the feed tray temperature can be adjusted to save energy and increase capacity.  Attentive, well-trained operators with team help and an effective control system can make a big difference to the bottom line of the business.

Paper machines: Paper machines in a paper mill fill rolls of product at high speed; but a paper break stops production and valuable time is lost to clean out the paper jam and ramp production back up to full line speed.  Many factors can influence paper breaks. Here again, attentive, well-trained operators and effective regulatory control of the paper machine and the upstream pulping process can really help the business. 

Batch processing: A pharmaceutical process can stack up expensive inventory waiting for quality approvals if batch production had flaws/aberrations. Well-trained operators may be able to avoid such aberrations.

Accidents Are Costly

During explosions, accidents, or fires, the quick action of operators can save lives, protect the environment, and protect equipment. It is not just operators that need to act, as maintenance staff, process engineers, and control system engineers can all contribute if they collaborate as a team. Many facilities act as if serious accidents will not happen at their facility and training programs skimp on abnormal situation training.

Human Factors

Measuring operator effectiveness is tricky.  Every human has strengths and weaknesses and operator effectiveness depends heavily on the tools he/she has to do the job.

Operators work toward business interests when they are highly effective. Effective operators improve production rate, product quality, yield, energy consumption. Effective operators protect personnel, protect assets, and protect the environment. Of course, operators do not accomplish all these great things by themselves. Process design engineers give the operators a process that is safe and stable.  The control system is arranged to keep the operator situationally aware and directly regulates many key variables.

New technology abounds in the area of immersive 3D simulation used for operator training. The new Millennial generation of workers already know gaming engines and high performance graphics interfaces using 3D visualization, virtualization, and augmented reality. Control system suppliers now routinely provide the ability to execute the complete HMI, alarming, and control functions on a virtual computer with a connection to a process simulation.   The recent advances in wearable technology, like the VR headsets, brings yet another new application to market. Consider that when conventional OTS and immersive training simulations are combined, the control room operator, the field operator and the maintenance crew would be able to interact simultaneously, with each person manipulating his own avatar.

Recommendations

ARC sees an increasing role for simulation for operator training. Simulation-based training forces a higher level of collaboration. Rather than just jump into the "bleeding edge" of this new wave of 3D virtualization, however, owner-operators need a plan. A process facility without any simulation capability might proceed in this order:

The plant control group should have a software development platform that supports simulation. The control system vendor should support this platform. A server-based virtual platform is common.  It must support real-time execution of all control algorithms, HMI, alarming, and -- ideally -- trending.  Typically, the function blocks can toggle from real I/O to simulated I/O. This platform alone is very useful for testing and debugging new control, HMI, and alarming functions.

Immersive simulators are more useful for spatially oriented training and abnormal situations. Immersive simulators are best for the outside field operator, maintenance activities and abnormal operation like fires or accidents. As a minimum, the training program should plan for this fast-emerging 3D virtual technology. The military has been making major investments in this area. The mining industry and heavy equipment suppliers have been early adopters of 3D training technology.

Accident avoidance in hazardous processes may have more economic incentive to develop immersive simulations. Planners, process engineers, and control engineers can assist with determining which abnormal situations should be part of the training program. This cooperation helps all those involved to understand what operators really need to be effective.

ARC surveys for training simulators point out the need for product development to integrate the immersive 3D environment with the more traditional dynamic process simulations. This integrated capability with multi-player game technology allows training programs to provide a new level of interactive training. The ability of the trainee to see his simulated plant as it actually exists, walk down paths, and observe equipment in a realistic setting is very useful for effective training.  There is no limit to how realistic simulations can be made and data shows that realism is important for operators to get the most out of simulation. 

Perhaps it is time to compute just how much value an effective operator and collaboration program can bring to your organization, and how training simulators can help squeeze more benefit from your processes and avoid costly accidents.

 

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Keywords: OTS, ITS, Start up, DCS, Operator Training, Operator Effectiveness, Operator Collaboration, Immersive Training, ARC Advisory Group.