Emerson Exchange 365

Even as technology changes, people remain at the center of the process industries. Finding and keeping the right people is becoming more and more difficult, however. An aging workforce is retiring and taking its knowledge with it, leaving businesses to fill the gap with less-experienced personnel. Meanwhile, operations are becoming more complex, and safety and security issues are more important than ever. 

All of this is why major producers like Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers, headquartered in Mumbai, have committed to investing in personnel training.  As RCF chief manager Hanumant K. Kadam explained at the 2014 Emerson Global Users Exchange, workforce competency development has become a mantra for RCF, and the company has recently instituted a personnel training program that is paying off in more ways than one. 

With annual revenue of over $1 billion, RCF is one of India’s leading makers of fertilizer.  Eight times a year, RCF operators and engineers train on about 20 different processes found throughout the company’s main facilities, which include a methylamine plant, an ammonium bicarbonate plant, a purge gas recovery unit, and a sewage treatment facility.  Training takes place at RCF’s award-winning Training Institute in Mumbai, which has conducted training programs for RCF as well as other companies and institutes since 1967. 

“Our training program is built on a learning architecture intended to develop employees by enhancing their knowledge, skills, and competencies in functional areas, as well as strategic and general management,” Kadam said.  “The competency development plans drawn up for each unit are based on process data from actual plant operations, which helps us reinforce best practices and continually update our knowledge base with techniques that work.” 

Operators are trained on the DeltaV distributed control system platform in a wide variety of applications.  Hands-on training is also an integral part of the program.  Custom set-ups are created at the Training Institute to test employees in real-world situations using different types of hardware and software, incorporating both HART and fieldbus protocols. 

“We’ve incorporated lessons learned from recent modernization projects, such as the adoption of wireless monitoring and Foundation fieldbus devices at our sewage treatment plant, into our curriculum, and we continually upgrade our training facilities to ensure that our employees are familiar with the latest automation technologies,” Kadam added. 

To calculate the return on investment (ROI) of its training program, RCF reviewed three months of data, including parameters such as turnover, frequency of accidents, and product quality metrics, and converted them into financial terms.  Assuming that every group of 10 trainees who complete the program contributes the equivalent of one metric ton of added productivity, the ROI is 1,078 percent, with 700 percent being the cost-benefit analysis benchmark. 

“Training is effective only if it produces results,” Kadam concluded.  “We’ve benefitted from our training program in terms of not only increased profitability, but also increased understanding of technologies and job requirements, greater staff flexibility, reduced turnover, and improved quality control.  Based on the strength of these results, we plan to continue investing in our greatest asset: our people.”