Ask Ron Besuijen

Ron's Response:

There are benefits and challenges with procedures. Procedures are an essential part of the safe and efficient operation of our process. The best way to highlight these are in a few bullet points. The following is based on research through the Center for Operator Performance with Dr. Gary Klein and Josheph Borders from ShadowBox Training. 

Benefits:

• Our processes are too complex to memorize every step, and not having to think through every step every time reduces the workload. 
• Procedures are great training tools for novices and help to compile experiences or learnings from incidents. 
• Critical tasks require specific sequences of events that if not followed could lead to lost production, hazardous releases, or worse.
• They are a great tool for documenting what steps are required for known emergencies or large process upset situations. The steps required can be discussed and evaluated when there is no time pressure. The more consistently the upsets follow the same pattern, the more successful the procedures will be.
• Procedures can impose consistency and help crews to coordinate across shifts. This is beneficial for activities that take more than one shift and helps the relief crew know where to take over. There are also complex tasks like taking equipment out of service for regeneration or removing fouling that can take coordination of the Panel Operator and the Field Operator. If they have not completed this task together before, then a procedure can ensure they are both approaching it the same way.
• Procedures, practices, and permits are a must for preparing equipment for maintenance. Preparing equipment is a critical task for operations to minimize the risk to maintenance personnel. This takes a coordinated effort between the two groups to ensure the equipment is safe to work on and safely returned to service.

Challenges: 

• They are great in well-ordered situations but become brittle in complex situations that can have many interactions. Every procedure is written with a set of assumptions that usually are not articulated (i.e., steady state, all equipment available and operational, full rates, etc.)
• It is difficult to write a procedure that is in a linear format to capture a multi-variable process where several things could be impacting each other at the same time. A plant start-up is like this. There can be two or more Panel Operators working on different systems that will affect the other systems. A procedure is a good resource for a start-up; however, if you are completely relying on the steps and not interacting with the conditions that present themselves, you will have a challenging start-up.
• It is difficult, if not impossible, to anticipate every possible situation that could happen. A few years ago, a company came and toured my plant’s simulator facility. The visiting company had attempted to write a procedure for every possible problem that could happen. This was not working as well as they had hoped, and they decided to change their approach to improve Operator performance via simulation-based training. Even if you could write a procedure for every possible problem, which I believe would take hundreds or more procedures, how would you find the right one in time to respond?
   

Procedures are crucial for ensuring safe and efficient operations, providing clear guidelines for complex tasks and emergencies, aiding in training, and ensuring consistency across shifts. However, they can be limited by their assumptions and linear format, struggling to adapt to dynamic and multi-variable situations. By using Dynamic Simulation we can balance procedural guidance with the flexibility to adapt to real-time conditions in order to enhance both safety and operational effectiveness.