Emerson Exchange 365

by Jim Montague

The brain drain isn’t coming. It’s here.

Veteran operators, technicians and control engineers are eligible or are retiring in record numbers, and the U.S. educational system isn’t training nearly enough replacements. At the same time, many new plants are larger and more complex to run than ever before.

“The main question is how can we get this long-time experience into new operators, and also pump it up through our organizations? And, how can we do the cross-training needed when so many of those in different generations practically speak different languages?” asked Brooke Robertson, regional control specialist at Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc. “We all have to do more with less, but safety is our license to operate, and we must also be more efficient and productive, too. Within five years, 17% of our workforce, including operators, engineers and maintenance personnel, will be eligible for retirement.”

Though this may seem like an unsolvable problem at first, Robertson reported there are many avenues for extracting veteran know-how, preserving it, and getting it into the heads and hands of next-generation process workers and control engineers. Robertson presented “Combining the Elements to Prepare for the Future Workforce” this week at the 2013 Emerson Global Users Exchange.

Robertson explained that many methods for securing veteran knowledge involve well-known upgrades and familiar improvement projects that most process applications and facilities should most likely be doing anyway.

For example, modernizing control systems and implementing global standards for HMIs, configuration modules, batch systems, safety integrated systems (SISs), sequential code and alarm standards and handling can also be a chance to rope in experienced operators, and instill their best practices in new systems, according to Robertson. Likewise, developing standards once and then using them globally means users only need to invest funds once instead of with each project, and they can create an internal network of experienced engineers, share and leverage their knowledge, and empower all employees to own, maintain and improve systems without dependence on vendors.

“If you can get experienced operators on your modernization team, then you can take their ideas to other operators, identify the best ways to program your systems, and then standardize these best practices globally and propagate them all over,” explained Robertson.
     
Similarly, she added that a simple alarm management program can be another way to preserve some priceless veteran know-how for use in the future. “We’re rationalizing plant DCS and SIS alarms to reduce nuisance alarms and help operators respond quicker,” added Robertson. “However, we’re also using exida’s SILAlarm with DeltaV AlarmHelp to populate the alarm pop-up window, which allows operator to return to normal state quicker. This means all operators correct the abnormal situation in the same way, but it also enables new operators to leverage knowledge of senior operators.”