Ask Julie Smith - How has simulation contributed to operator training and control strategy development in your organization?

Julie's Response:

Many years ago, one site had an incident where an interruption in the flow of an organic fuel led to a deflagration. As a result, the operators always ran the flow controller in manual and “babied” it, making many small moves continuously. This strategy not only took too much of their attention, it was actually less safe when we needed to cut rates, risking a too fuel-rich scenario.  
The preferred approach was a classic fuel/air cross limiting ratio strategy with overrides. We recognized that this would be a huge jump from the manual controls they had become accustomed to, so we built a first principles simulation that could be run on the offline control system. 

I will never forget the look on their faces when we first showed them a rate cut and instantly dropped the fuel 20%. It was pure panic. But by practicing on the simulator, they overcame the panic reaction and became comfortable with letting the controls do their job. 

The conversion became a huge success.