GSE White Paper · Signifi cant Shortage of Talent The shortage of skilled workers has been a...

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GSE White Paper Entry2 Expert Innovation A Comprehensive Human Performance Improvement Program for Developing a Highly Skilled Workforce

Transcript of GSE White Paper · Signifi cant Shortage of Talent The shortage of skilled workers has been a...

Page 1: GSE White Paper · Signifi cant Shortage of Talent The shortage of skilled workers has been a consistent problem for several years and is only getting worse. According to the recent

GSE White PaperEntry2Expert Innovation

A Comprehensive Human Performance

Improvement Program for Developing

a Highly Skilled Workforce

Page 2: GSE White Paper · Signifi cant Shortage of Talent The shortage of skilled workers has been a consistent problem for several years and is only getting worse. According to the recent

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To address the primary staffi ng challenges facing the process

industries, such as the mass retirement of the baby boom

generation, increasing workforce nationalization, and a general

lack of available talent, GSE Systems, Inc. has developed

Entry2Expert (E2E) Human Performance Improvement Solutions.

GSE’s E2E approach enables an organization to transform

employees from inexperienced entry-level workers to problem-

solving experts quickly and effectively.

This paper discusses GSE’s comprehensive solutions to enable

process manufacturers to train new employees, dramatically

improve the competency of mid-career employees, and to

develop employees as the vital human assets at the heart of any

successful operation.

Filling the Boots

Imagine a pair of worn out work boots. Now imagine John, a

62-year-old man, wearing those work boots. John was a fi eld

operator, board operator, and shift supervisor at the Acme

plant for the past 35 years. He knows the process technologies

inside out. In his career, John operated multiple process units,

maintained plant equipment, and ensured safe and continuous

production of on-spec products. John supported seven

turnarounds and safely handled scores of unplanned shutdowns

and process incidents. He mentored dozens of entry-level

operators and turned them into experts. Now John is gone.

He left his boots and retired to Scottsdale just as he’d always

dreamed.

Who will fi ll John’s boots? Once Acme fi nds a new operator,

how will they make that new operator an expert? How long

will that take? Who will handle the big problems until then?

Can the company quickly replace the vast knowledge and

experience that walked away in John’s boots? How?

Retirement and Nationalization

John is not the only Baby Boomer retiring in 2015. In North

America, Europe, and Australia unprecedented numbers will

walk away from the energy industry this year. According to

a recent survey published by Mercer’s Energy, the majority of

employers may lose 50 to 80 percent of their retirement-eligible

staff over the next fi ve years.1

Another cause of rapidly diminishing expertise is nationalization

in the Middle East. According to DLA Piper, the global law fi rm,

in order to dramatically reduce high youth unemployment rates,

the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries, such as Saudi

Arabia, Oman, and Kuwait intend to replace large numbers of

expatriates with homegrown talent.2

In a recent article in the Middle East Policy Journal, “The GCC’s

‘Demographic Imbalance’: Perceptions, Realities and Policy

Options,” Dr. Ingo Forstenlechner and Dr. Emilie Rutledge

claim that the percentage of foreign employees working in

Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries ranges from 49.5

percent in Saudi Arabia to 95.8 percent in UAE. Based on these

numbers, the Middle East is clearly the region most dependent

on foreign labor in the world.

The authors write, “While we will contend that this relationship

has, for the most part, been mutually benefi cial, it is currently,

perhaps more than ever before, also giving rise to an array

of genuinely felt concerns.” A serious concern is that expats

in this region are primarily considered migrant workers and

not immigrants, since GCC countries do not offer a process

for naturalization.3 This diminishes the willingness of foreign

workers to remain in these GCC countries, and for this and

other reasons, expats often develop their skills in GCC countries

and then return home to fi nd work.

Retiring workers and expats cannot be replaced fast enough.

To make matters worse, increasing energy demand in the

developed world is driving up the need for skilled workers,

just as the available workforce is shrinking. Furthermore, other

industries (e.g., Start-ups, Tech Companies, etc.) are competing

with the energy industry for trained and talented people, and

the number of college graduates entering the fi eld is falling.

Who is going to fi ll these boots?

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Signifi cant Shortage of Talent

The shortage of skilled workers has been a consistent problem

for several years and is only getting worse. According to the

recent White Paper published by Manpower Group, “The Talent

Shortage Continues: How the Ever Changing Role of HR Can

Bridge the Gap,” global employers have identifi ed skilled trade

workers as the largest talent shortage, followed by engineers,

and then by technicians in production, operations, and

maintenance. Further, over half the employers reporting a talent

shortage claim the shortage has directly affected their ability to

meet business objectives.4

The process industry faces an uncertain future. Will the

workforce of millennials and nationals taking over in the next

few years possess the necessary operations and technical skills

and experience required to run omplex process operations.

As global energy demand rises another 35 percent by 2040,

as expected, a skilled workforce is imperative,5 but many

companies are unable to suffi ciently recruit, train, and maintain

adequate talent.

According to a Harvard Business Review study, most

boards of directors are giving their companies an F in talent

management.6 Some corporate directors are identifying talent

management as their single greatest strategic challenge. In fact,

70 percent of US CEOs are concerned with the availability of

key skills necessary for achieving their business goals.7

In 2014, to help tackle the workforce development challenge,

the American Petroleum Institute launched

www.oilandgasworkforce.com, a website providing information

to anyone interested in careers, training, and certifi cations in

the oil and gas industry.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Air Energi, in

partnership with Queensland University of Technology,

researched workforce risks as they relate to oil and gas projects.

According to their extensive report, “There are concerns that

not being able to get the right people at the right time for

the right cost could inevitably threaten the overall delivery

of projects on time and within budget. Ultimately, this could

prevent the industry from living up to high expectations and

predictions of growth.”8

Traditional Control System Vendor

Approach

Another challenge is that digital control system (DCS) vendors

typically deemphasize workforce development as they

implement their systems. From concept through commissioning

to operation, there is insuffi cient emphasis on operator

development. DCS companies prefer to enter the lifecycle

early to infl uence and control the account, and in the process,

they ignore the training required for successful startup and

commissioning, focusing instead on the engineering, design,

and control system. They fail to understand the importance of

operator involvement through the lifecycle of the plant.

Improved Equipment Reliability and Process

Controls

There have been signifi cant technological advances in the

process industry. Plant equipment and instrumentation have

never been more reliable. And while advances in reliability and

automation lead to fewer process incidents, environmental

hazards, and fatalities, it can be also argued that the technology

has actually built a barrier between operators and a basic

understanding of what is happening in the plant and why.

As John’s story illustrates, technology is no substitute for a

person who knows how to use it. The most important person

in your plant at 2 a.m. is your Board Operator. When “it hits

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the fan” at 2 a.m., your Board Operator must make decisions

quickly and alone. Intuitively understanding the relationship

between plant behavior and its likely underlying causes during

abnormal situations is crucial.

As challenging situations become less common, operators

with the expertise and experience to meet them also become

less common. When it comes to infrequent operations such

as startup, shutdown, and abnormal situations, operators

no longer have enough real-world practice to respond with

fl awless confi dence. Without practice and practical experience,

operators lack the intuitive understanding of how their actions

affect overall plant performance.

Industry Turning Point - BP Texas City

Refi nery Explosion

In March, 2005, the BP Texas City Refi nery made headlines

across the world, as an onsite explosion caused 15 deaths,

180 injuries to plant personnel, fi nancial losses exceeding

$1.5 billion, and disarray in the community. One of the worst

disasters in American industrial history, it continues to provide a

key learning scenario for refi neries throughout the globe.

According to the investigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety and

Hazard Investigation Board, inadequate operator training, poor

communication, and process instrumentation failures were all

key factors in the incident.9 The investigation concluded that

a raffi nate splitter tower had been overfi lled for several hours,

activating pressure relief valves on the side of the tower.

The valves released large quantities of fl ammable liquid to a

blowdown system with a vent stack open to atmosphere. The

blowdown drum and stack overfi lled with the fl ammable liquid

and released to atmosphere, since it had never been connected

to a fl are system. The released liquid eventually found an

ignition source, believed to be from the backfi re of an idling

diesel pickup truck parked several feet from the drum.10

Key technical fi ndings from the investigation included:

• Tower level indicator failure

• Tower high level alarm failure

• Lack of data displayed in the DCS refl ecting imbalance of

tower fl ows

• Lack of technically trained personnel during startup

• Outdated and ineffective operating procedures

• Inadequate operator training program

The report also noted that the central training team had recently

been reduced from 28 to eight members and that operator

training provided no hands-on practice with abnormal situations

and other infrequent operations, such as startups.11

Competency Development and Abnormal

Situation Management

As Dr. David Embrey wrote in his article, “A Human Factors

Approach to Managing Competency in Handling Process Control

Disturbances,” there are two common strategies for developing

training programs to teach operators to handle process upsets.

The fi rst trains operators to recognize a set of indicators directly

linked to a predetermined diagnosis. As long as the particular

scenario is built into the training program and the proper

diagnostic parameters are effectively recognized by the operator,

the training can kick in and the operator can successfully resolve

the issue.12

But what happens when a predetermined diagnosis does not fi t

the parameters identifi ed by the operator? What happens when

the parameters line up with more than one diagnosis? What

should the operator do?

The second approach teaches operators to diagnose and resolve

issues on their own. While this approach is more arduous and

time consuming in both training-development and operator

effort, if done properly, low probability scenarios that could

not have been predicted during training development can be

recognized.

But how do you quickly and effectively teach highly complex,

highly technical chemical engineering principles? How expensive

and time-consuming will this process be? Even with a thorough

analysis of the processes and talent in place and the variety of

disturbances that can occur, these questions are diffi cult, if not

impossible, to answer. While each approach has its advantages

and drawbacks, the most practical, cost-effective, and

manageable approach from both a design and implementation

standpoint, combines both approaches.13

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Entry2Expert Human Performance Improvement Solution

GSE’s Entry2Expert solutions apply simulation and training technologies to workforce development, plant operations, engineering

and process controls, effectively enabling plants to bring on and train new operators and improve the skills of existing operators.

The E2E human-performance-improvement program provides a strong technical foundation to help operators, engineers, and

maintenance personnel learn not only how the plant works, but why it works the way it does.

Self-paced, thorough, and fl exible training, with minimal instructor involvement, enables employees to accelerate their time to

autonomy, as they learn to operate the plant effectively and effi ciently.

The E2E lifecycle begins with employee recruiting, screening, and selection. These critical fi rst steps ensure that organizations

fi nd the right people with the right personal makeup and technical aptitude to persist and thrive under all plant conditions. Next,

during the instructional systems design stage, training programs structured to specifi c client needs are developed using the ADDIE

(Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate) model.

Once the program is established, trainees use self-paced,

web-based tutorials, based on extensive research on

effective learning methods, to study the fundamentals of

unit operations and controls. Through the tutorials, trainees

grasp the application and function of process units, the

associated equipment, and how it is operated and controlled.

Web-based tutorials are literally interactive textbooks that

can be accessed within seconds with a click of a mouse.

Tutorials explain complex chemical engineering theory, as well

process operations, in terms understandable to non-technical

personnel.

After mastering the fundamentals through tutorials, trainees

learn by doing with the universal simulators. On the universal

simulator, trainees practice infrequent conditions, such as

startup and shutdown, and possibly the specifi c process

upsets operators have faced at their particular plant. By

encountering scenarios within the simulator, operators

develop the knowhow to not only prevent the upset, but also

recover from it quickly.

With GSE’s universal simulator, training managers can

actually teach operators about the BP Texas City Refi nery

incident, and operators can experience it themselves. On the

simulator, instructors can recreate a tower overfi ll scenario

by failing the instrumentation and alarms associated with

the tower, as happened with the BP refi nery explosion.

Once comfortable with the generic DCS interface on the

universal simulator, trainees can progress to a custom

operator training simulator (OTS). A custom OTS is a plant-

specifi c simulator closely replicating an organization’s plant

control room. An OTS enables practice with plant-specifi c

operating procedures and provides effective hands-on

experience using a process specifi c, realistic, and non-

intrusive environment.

Anecdotal evidence provided by GSE customers and partners

indicates that combining web-based tutorials with universal

and custom simulators and an emphasis on why things

happen, reduces the typical operator’s time to compliance

by as much as 50 percent and reduces incidents by as

much as 80 percent.

EnVision™ Web-Based Process Overview Tutorial

EnVision™ Depropanizer Simulation

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Summary

In the industrialized West, the Baby Boom generation is retiring. In the Gulf Region, countries are nationalizing their

workforces. Across the globe, competition for talent is increasing, while equipment reliability and advanced process

controls minimize plant events and reduce operator exposure to real-world anomalies and infrequent occurrences.

Talent is scarce. Experience is vanishing. New operators are essential, and existing operators are insuffi ciently seasoned.

Training is vital. By combining web-based tutorials, high-fi delity universal and custom simulators, and the appropriate level

of instructor-led training, Entry2Expert provides effective, accelerated, and economical training well-suited to transforming

raw trainees into the next generation of experts.

GSE’s Entry2Expert training and technologies effectively address the talent crisis by rapidly preparing new and existing

operators and engineers to avoid hazardous situations, minimize wear and tear on plant equipment, maintain on-spec

products, minimize utility costs, and recover from abnormal conditions.

Most importantly, Entry2Expert attempts to instill the deep understanding, dedication, and pride that transforms people

into enduring assets of immeasurable long-term value.

For more information on GSE’s E2E approach to workforce performance improvement, visit www.gses.com/e2e.

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References

1. Khallash, Sally. Skills Gaps Threatening Oil and Gas Sector. Retrieved December 18, 2014, from http:// globaltalentstrategy.com/en/article/skills-gaps-threatening-oil-

and-gas-sector-525

2. Lawrence, S., & Krudewagen, U. (2014, August 12). Top employment issues in the Middle East in 2014 and beyond. Retrieved April 2, 2015, from https://www.

dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2014/08/top-employment-issues-in-the-middle-east/

3. Forstenlechner, I. and Rutledge, E. J. (2011), THE GCC’S “DEMOGRAPHIC IMBALANCE”: PERCEPTIONS, REALITIES AND POLICY OPTIONS. Middle East Policy, 18:

25–43. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4967.2011.00508.x

4. The Talent Shortage Continues: How the Ever Changing Role of HR Can Bridge the Gap. (2014). Retrieved April 9, 2015, from http://www.manpowergroup.com/wps/

wcm/connect/0b882c15-38bf-41f3-8882-44c33d0e2952/2014_Talent_Shortage_WP_US2.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&ContentCache=NONE

5. The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040. (2015). Retrieved April 15, 2015, from http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/global/Reports/Outlook%20For%20

Energy/2015/2015-Outlook-for-Energy_print-resolution

6. Groysberg, B., & Bell, D. (2013, May 28). Talent Management: Boards Give Their Companies an “F”. Retrieved April 2, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2013/05/talent-

management-boards-give/

7. 2014 US CEO Survey - Good to grow. (2014). Retrieved April 7, 2015, from http://www.pwc.com/us/en/ceo-survey-us/2014/assets/2014-us-ceo-survey.pdf

8. Becker, K., & Smidt, M. (2014, January 31). Workforce Related Project Risks Findings Report. Retrieved April 10, 2015, from http://www.airenergi.com/sites/default/

fi les/brochures/prep.pdf

9. Investigation Report: Refi nery Explosion and Fire. (2007, March). Retrieved April 17, 2015, from http://www.csb.gov/assets/1/19/csbfi nalreportbp.pdf

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

12. Embrey, D. (2009, November 10-12). A Human Factors Approach to Managing Competency in Handling Process Control Disturbances. Paper presented at Hazards

XXI: Process Safety and Environmental Protection in a Changing World, University of Manchester, UK. Abstract retrieved April 14, 2015, from https://www.icheme.

org/~/media/Documents/Subject%20Groups/Safety_Loss_Prevention/Hazards%20Archive/XXI/XXI-Paper-064.pdf

13. Ibid.

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Visit www.GSES.com for more information

REV 8/15

Contact Us

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