Reality in the Transformation in the Industrial Training and Knowledge Transfer, With a Power Plant, Why not You?

I have discussed at length the transition of our workforce and that it is not just going to a new generation ( 42% of the workforce by 2020) but it is the dynamic culture of this workforce ( tenure ship less that 2.4 years in the role by 2020) that poses one of the biggest challenges to the industrial operational/ automation workplace.

At a dinner in Florida I was sitting next to a gentlemen in charge of "change management" at a counties power facilities major power stations. A major part of the focus is on training, and knowledge transfer. The conversation initially focused on the challenge of "baby boomer" retiring over the next 5 to 8 years and the knowledge, experience "walking out" the door. It was interesting to understand how stable his  automation and operational work force has been for the last 20 to 30 years. They are a premier employer in the area, and most of the current work force has come from trainee and full careers there, many were there when the power plants were commissioned, growing up with the plants.

Reminding me of a saying by a colleague "that when he joined the workforce on plants, the average age was his age eg 20, now that he is in his late 50s the average age of the workforce on a plant he visits is still his age ( late 50s)." As we had dinner this, saying was ringing in my head as the stories from the power plants came out.

As the dinner progressed the other challengers came out that they were building new gas powered plants, shutting down some of the older power units, and the new workforce was aged less that 35 years old, (most younger) and little to no experience. The shorter tenure ship in a role he had not seen yet, but when discussing he had noticed a trend to rotating roles, and want to progress, new challenges, and with the new gas plants with new technology and learning he saw the challenge not far off.

So he has embarked on a significant Operator Training Simulation Program. Work on three fronts:

1/ power unit operations

2/ power unit maintenance and start up, shut down

3/ environmental / energy management

These are 3 different communities of the workforce, the third being a specialized one which is becoming critical due to government regulations and the heavy fines, so understanding how to seal with different situations including weather and load is key.

The first step is to really structure the training knowledge capture from the “baby boomers" capturing their experience in operations reacting to situations, and performing maintenance. Action and knowledge they take for granted now caught in the simulation models and built in as training scenarios that can play over and over again.

His learnings are also supported in the diagram below:

He also talked about not just simulations, but his learning has been the other training tools, measurements within the OTS tools that he did not initially appreciate (or use until recently) that allow the training to evolve, and improve as well develop the team.

The big walk away I had from this dinner discussion was that he could not see how they would go through this workforce transition, and plant transition, and maintain the current operational levels in efficiency and safety without automated, simulation tools.

His whole story was micro example of what I am seeing across the world, but so many are not acting, he had been implementing a "change management" plan based around simulation learning for the last 4 years, and he was still evolving, but seeing significant returns.

On the new plants, they will have simulation as part of the plant design and operator training simulation from the outset.

Yet a week later across the other side of the world in mining, (where an even more dynamic workforce transition is happening,  with combination significant workforce rotation and retirement) the shift to simulated online training is seen as a "nice to have".

Key as we look forward there are 3 big areas that need to align, Operational performance Asset utilization / efficiency Operational workforce effectiveness. They are all equal and dependent on  each other, and the leading companies will be the ones that master the balance across the three as the dynamics in all three increases.

Next week I will expand on knowledge dissemination, learning transformation that is and will have to happen in the industrial space. 

Disruptive opportunity with transitional actives (FAT, training, simulation) for industrial space

As the weeks go on the discussion continues to increase around the opportunities, and growing consideration of Cloud playing in the industrial automation and operations architectures within end users. One of the emerging realization of opportunities in the transitional activities on bringing a plant on line, such as commissioning and operational learning. Not been mission critical activities, as one person put it “why would you want buy and set up hardware for activities such as FAT (factory acceptance testing) or training simulation for only 2 to 3 months?”

The concept of a virtual FAT environment is not new, what is intriguing is the fact that the “cloud” offers expandable (elastic) computing engaged for a temporary period on a monthly plan. Too often the limitation on FAT efficiency is availability of hardware, due to project budgets of purchasing hardware , no flexibility to expand and then the hardware goes to site, restricting the offsite testing and the ability to have multiple FATs happening at the same time. The cloud can easily host the virtual images of servers, control simulators and different workstations of a plant.

Key is that an engineering house can provision the required computing capability in days and test out the loading required computing power required by the application via a cloud virtual environment. They can create a temporary FAT or development environment in the cloud, which can exist for the life of project build, costing is leasing, the system can expand as the project grows or goes through different stages. This is different to a virtual environment in that the computing power in unlimited, and it grows and shrinks with the requirement and it avoids out of date hardware with no home.

Another end user discussion is relative to training simulation. Traditional OTS (Operating Training Systems) programs expect a long term steady state of training capability, but as the initial project go live, and the evolution of existing staff, and associated staff they have a temporary requirement for significant operational and worker training systems, and again " cloud seems ideal for this". The fact that a simulation OTS can be set up and then expanded, accessed from different locations, and then dismantled after the demand drops without the need to by unnecessary hardware is key.

Both of these examples are not earth shattering, but the discussion and questions show a shift in thinking. I am fully of the belief that a typical automation/ operations architecture which spans geographical boundaries and even within a plant, will be a HYBRID architecture in the next 3 to 5 years. With on premise set of applications, (probably upgraded versions of the existing ones on the site today), and with a set “cloud” based applications either on private or pub that work in a complementary fashion with the plants. Providing additional richness to the site applications with extra computing power to execute applications such as simulation (“What if”), for training, knowledge systems, and cross plant applications such as history, information, and decision support. The development of security architectures that accommodate the cloud for industrial space, where security access is handled external to plants fire walls, combined with the plant firewalls, providing significant security.

Another example comes from a recent paper from Analysts ARC on MOM/MES customer interviews which stated:

“Another implementation timesaver to look for is the availability of cloud-based MOM/MES system for development. Compared to waiting for on – site servers and data bases to be acquired, deployed, and configured; the cloud-based  system can be often be provisioned in a few hours so the team can get right to work. If templates are also used stake holders can immediately begin to make system decisions that otherwise might take weeks or months to reach and base these on the best possible information, the actual system behavior.”

As we have seen over the last 6 to 8 months the discussion grows around using the cloud, especially as the cloud based industrial applications continue to be released to market, and the next 6 months will see a step increase in these. The time has come to understand what the requirement is for the  business ,then ask the question which is the best way to implement this in a scalable and affordable low risk manner.

Operator Training Systems become the Corner Stone for Management of Change to a Flexible Operational Team.

Over the last month I have hosted a number of customer workshops on the evolution of Operational Teams, which you have seen in the discussion over the last couple of months is going through a significant change.

I enjoy these discussions, and brainstorming, especially with groups who have been charged with Operational Performance, and they have moved away from grinding out more value from capital assets (this is a very mature area with asset management) and have shifted their focus to the Human Assets. It is funny to think 10 years ago we were talking “lights out manufacturing” without humans, the best comment I have heard to this notion is that “turning the lights out makes it hard for operators to find their way to the control room”. The real change is people have realized that complex / agile decisions needed today require the human brain, so the role of people in the aligning of an operational process is key.
Human roles are becoming shorter, many rotating sites due to expertise, and changes in practices coming about all the time due to regulations, or increased efficiency. The introduction of Remote Operational Centers and the fact that we have dynamic teams on site, as well as the virtual team see the diagram below.

What came up in all the workshops was not just the technology of collaboration, but the challenge of “Managing the Change” in operational culture. It is great to people recognizing this, as it is the biggest hurdle to success. Why you may ask? A key concepts in the new operational environment is the move to Advanced Process Graphics which are very different operational experience to the 3d effects of the 2000s. (see the diagram below shows the evolution of operational experience below ).

These new graphical approaches provide fast recognition and action of situations; as well companies are trying to gain style, layout, and visualization standards. So now an existing operator is now going to move from their existing interface to a new interface with different experience which should be more efficient so they can handle more information, but it will be a leap of change. These new layouts, and experiences will enable consistency of operations over sites, collberation, and increased efficiency.

In all the discussions the concept of the “Operator Training System” (OTS) comes to front of mind to be critical in this “Management of Change” and also the reduction in the “Time to Performance”, as illustrated in the diagram below. Often the teams have come in with the thought that the OTS is a nice to have, but as we get into the discussion the realization that it is not just for training, it will enable:

·      The new operational experience can be tested and trained against in as many situations as possible. Enabling a transition of the operator from the old to new collectrative Advanaced expereince. With the level of the operator being tracked to see when they reach a level of satisfaction that means they can switch.

·       It provides a safe environment to test, and validate the new operational experience, making sure that it has been well tested.

·       Enable the Training of Operational staff on real situations

·       The ability to report on each Operators capabilities and effectiveness on an ongoiing basis.

·       A safe real environment to enable “operational Innovation” by letting your best Operators get into situations and innovate better procedures or capture their procedure so you can set up a standard procedure for that situation. The OTS provides the critical environment for Innovation that of allowing experimentation in a safe way.

·         The ability for experienced operational people to be trained on new locations / sites prior to being transferred, this includes the 3d Virtual environments which provide the physical familiarity.

By the end of these workshops OTS moves up to not a nice to have but an essential component on the evolution of the Operational Experience. I hope you are looking at OTS in a different light, I cannot see companies doing this evolution without OTS.