Control Engineering

This morning I received an email from Jason Covington of Mynah about the posting from last Friday. Whether or not you look at the whitepaper, his point is well made. The more sophisticated the tool, the more training required.

Jason says: "Regarding the skills gap, I have heard statistics that as many as 50-60% percent of plant operations staff will retire in the next 5-6 years, leaving a big gap. The only way to fill the gap is to recruit and train young engineers and operators in the next few years.

"Back in 1987, British engineering psychologist, Lisanne Bainbridge concluded that 'the most successful automated systems with rare need for manual intervention...need the greatest investment in operator training' (Wiley, 1987). Today, this is truer than ever. With increased government oversight, regulation, fiduciary liability, and a zero tolerance for downtime, plants require good offline training systems to meet these challenges and stay profitable.

"I have written a whitepaper on how third generation simulation helps solve this problem. We have been training operators using simulation since 1985. I outline the problem and list the requirements of operations managers to address this need. Then, I explain how first and second generation simulation products are inadequate for these increasing demands. Last, I explain how third-generation simulation can meet these emerging needs for operator training."

If there are fewer engineers, it stands to reason that operators in future will have less engineering education, so the nature of training will have to change to accomodate that. We won't be able to assume that individuals understand the basic concepts of process operations as a result of their education. The ability to adapt will be paramount.