Automation & Control
Dr Paul Turner looks at how advanced process control can enhance safety across the process industries.
Dr. Paul Turner untersucht, wie eine fortschrittliche Prozesskontrolle zu mehr Sicherheit in der
verfahrenstechnischen Industrie beitragen kann.
Le docteur Paul Turner analyse la manière dont le contrôle des procédés avancés peut renforcer la sécurité au sein des secteurs de transformation.
Solve the skills shortage and protect asset safety
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Fig. 1. According to The Society of Petroleum Engineers, the average age of a petroleum worker is 51 years old. Nearly 60 per cent are 45 or older.
n the past, process engineering companies have benefited from access to experienced talent in the form of control/process engineers, operators and general IT staff. This situation is unlikely to continue for much longer. Thousands of engineers are on the brink of retirement and there is a lack of staff with the requisite expertise to replace them. With companies looking at rationalising assets
and markets pressurised, this situation is unlikely to get any better - at least not for the foreseeable future. The problem is particularly serious in the
chemicals, oil and gas sectors. According to The Society of Petroleum Engineers, the average age of a petroleum worker is 51 years old. Nearly 60 per cent are 45 or older. This peak in the profile of workers suggests that approximately 40 per cent of the workforce will be lost over the next decade.
Keeping assets secure The growing knowledge gap raises some serious issues and concerns when it comes to health and safety. The skills shortages issue needs to be addressed if companies also - are to come to terms with the growing problem of their maturing and sometimes decaying assets, which raise serious worries about their structural integrity. Asset safety is brought into further jeopardy by
high staff turnover, accelerating the rate of loss of knowledge about the way the asset works. Skills shortages throughout the industry inevitably lead
to greater use of third-party contractors who are unlikely to have the same level of familiarity and understanding as the original employees. One of the main technical areas where there is
a severe knowledge gap affecting both the oil & gas and the chemicals industries is advanced process control (APC). Over the past two decades, there have been nearly 20 000 APC implementations worldwide, many of which have been within traditional markets of refining and ethylene production.
Implementation strategies and ‘tricks of the
trade’ have evolved over time and the pioneering veterans with 20+ years’ experience are also facing retirement. Given the global nature of this business, these engineers are being replaced by lower cost staff with less experience. This skills gap highlights why deploying process
optimisation and decision support technology can have such an important role to play in facilitating automation of routine tasks and in allowing essential engineering skills to be deployed where they can be used most effectively and safely. Sophisticated yet easy-to-use software suites are
key in helping those new to the sector to assimilate the knowledge required to work on the aging assets from their highly experienced, retiring colleagues. It also provides sustainable engineering best practice to those already working at operational facilities and those aspiring to do so. In this way, technology is effectively used to help engineers to deploy their honed skills in areas where they are most required, such as informed decision-making. Software technology providers need to make
sure that these applications are intuitive to learn and use and align to industry work practices, so that they can deliver benefit to the widest possible community within a business and not just act as the focal point for experts. This is reflected by the industry’s experience with APC where vendors are increasingly tasked with either making sophisticated capability easier to use or adopting a more practical approach to implementation. The key requirements are to improve the performance of the facility, embed knowledge into applications and provide performance management and advice to the operation. The prospect of a significant loss of industry
knowledge relating to APC requires urgent action. The business model will need to change if APC is to continue to offer value for money. The answer is to complement veteran expertise with easier-to-use processes, workflows and tools, effective knowledge
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