Hands-On Training, Combined with Traditional Classroom Instruction, Provides a Realistic Learning Environment

Summary

Many process plant managers would like to upgrade the skill levels of their existing personnel and quickly get new hires up to speed, but this is often a challenge. Even if they can find qualified engineers and technicians, they may have little or no practical experience in an actual process plant production environment. They may have a strong foundation of theory gained in a classroom, but that won’t be sufficient to deal with an upset in a distillation column, for example. And for both types of employees, time is often of the essence, so they need to be brought up to speed quickly, without placing an undue burden on existing staff.
 
Working in a plant environment presents real-world effects and consequences. The facility is there to produce quality products safely and profitably in the quantities required. If a process plant has no choice but to depend on inexperienced people, maintaining production can be threatened, or worse, a novice may not realize the potential for cascading effects and damage from what appears to be a modest adjustment, or a minor repair.
 
A contributing factor to the problem is that experienced workers have a high degree of mobility these days due to many years of cutbacks, compounded by the continuing wave of retirements from the baby-boomer workforce. The onus is on companies to create an environment where people want to work in a facility that is safe and for a corporation that has earned respect with the public. Paying well is critical, but workers must see opportunities for advancement, or they will often go elsewhere to get it. Companies that retain the best people provide paths for upskilling and promotions to avoid creating dead-end jobs.
 
So, how does a new person or someone who started in an entry-level position gain skills in a way that is equivalent to extensive time in a plant, but in a condensed timeline? Can years of knowledge gained on the job be compressed into a shorter period? Answering that question must begin by thinking about how people learn, both in general and the skills necessary in this context.
 
To be even more specific, we’ll concentrate on the needs of new recruits moving into mid- to senior-level positions of operator, engineer and technician; positions that frequently require some level of technical training. Prospects may bring a four-year university engineering degree, training at a community college, or something in between. The common element is a lack of real-world experience in an operating plant, or at least a lack of experience applying such technical skills in situations capable of affecting production.
 

The training vs. experience challenge

Formal education, including university and technical school programs (Figure 1), is critical because it provides the foundation for knowledge more specific to a given process industry sector or individual workplace.

Simulators versus hands-on

Advances in automation have provided amazing digital twins of facilities, such as Emerson’s Mimic Simulation Software, that are able to support all manner of what-if inquiries and allow experimentation with process changes. They can also serve as training platforms, allowing novices to see the effects of process adjustments, or deal with upsets, all without affecting actual production. This is an excellent way to train for those rare occurrences when it is necessary to have workers ready to assist with procedures they have not previously experienced. However, this only goes so far as it exists on a computer screen, and many facilities simply don’t have this kind of capability.
 
There is a world of process plant equipment that is universal to process environments and not proprietary to a specific facility or unit. We refer to these as components, and they are part and parcel of virtually every process manufacturing facility:

• HMI software
• Controller hardware
• Controller programming software
• Process instruments
• Analyzers
• Field device I/O
• Motor control
• Valves and actuators
• Networks
• Asset management software
• Calibration management software.

 Process plant technicians and engineers should have a working knowledge in most of these areas, and the basic practices associated with these are widely transferrable to any location since they apply anywhere. Traditionally they would have been taught to new workers using hands-on training in a role-appropriate approach through an apprentice type of program. Unfortunately, these programs have faded away in many environments, leading to a search for alternate approaches.
 

Mixing studying and doing

Professional educators have been working with Emerson Education Services & Training for many years to develop programs that help companies upskill and improve their personnel, similar to how they improve their plants using automation. As plants become more sophisticated and gain new capabilities, so must the individuals supporting them.
 
Over the years, this has included an enormous range of courses related largely to the component topics listed earlier, and these are all areas where Emerson offers broad product lines. This allows client companies to choose the areas where they find the greatest need, allowing them to zero-in on topic areas where their personnel need the most development. Offerings include every imaginable option for classroom, online, episodic, self-directed and one-on-one training (Figure 2).
 

• Oil- and water-based batch processes with multiple tanks, plus valves, pumps, etc.
• Mix of legacy and current devices.
• Hundreds of wired and wireless devices, each with associated I/O tags.
• Real-time control via Emerson’s DeltaV automation system and HMIs.

• Does the range on this Rosemount 3051 Pressure Transmitter need to be adjusted? Here’s a HART communicator, let’s go change the configuration (Figure 4).
• Why is this tank filling so slowly? What valve or VFD needs to be adjusted to correct the flow?
• Where do we find the value for this temperature point on the HMI? Is that the best place to display it?