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What areas of expertise are needed to mitigate constraints in plant/facility staffing levels?

Oct-2024

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Dave Loubser, KBC (A Yokogawa Company), dave.loubser@kbc.global

Organisations worldwide are facing manpower challenges due to the drive to remove humans from workplace hazards, retirements, the availability of appropriately qualified candidates, and/or a reluctance to work in the industry. We are seeing increasing age, knowledge, and experience gaps as clients try to backfill vacancies, and this is leading to a switchover to digital tools to mitigate this situation. This is not only placing a strain on the recruitment process as clients seek future employees who are tech-savvy but also on internal learning and development systems.

The implementation of digital tools to solve the manpower issue is posing a new set of challenges in that specific technical and personal competencies are required to not only understand the new technologies but also extract the maximum value from them. The aim of implementing these digital technologies and tools is to shift the role of the worker from a manual intervention role to a more analytical, response, and troubleshooting role. This shift requires very different competencies for the worker to be able to accomplish their tasks. The following are considered to be some of the technical and personal competencies that will be required:

Technical competencies
· Process improvement: Improve current and/or develop new work processes to include digital tools and systems to ensure reliable, consistent, and effective daily task execution.
· Data literacy: The ability to be able to understand, interpret, and communicate data effectively. It is no secret that the industry is swimming in data and making clear sense of it all is a challenge. End users will need to become familiar with framing problems and solutions in abstract data-centric domains.
· Data quality assessment: This is a critical skill to enable workers to effectively identify, validate, and select the best data to execute their tasks and solve problems.
· Data analysis and modelling: This is an IT-centric capability to interpret business problems, derive their abstract IT/OT information elements, and model solutions to assist better and quicker decision making.
· AI and machine learning: This has been described as the future of almost every industry. A level of fundamental understanding of AI and machine learning and the advantages and benefits of their application will be required.
· Cyber security: This is critical in industry today and workers must understand the role they play in understanding and assuring cyber security while they manage data.
· Enhanced IT/OT capability: This will be required to ensure the smooth implementation, operation, and continuous tuning of the digital solutions. These skills will include IT skills along with requisite functional engineering skills and foundational knowledge to enable the effective implementation and use of digital tools.

Personal competencies
· Critical thinking: This is a foundational skill that will enable workers to extract the maximum value from the digital data and allow for better and quicker decision making.
· Creative thinking: Coupled with data quality management and critical thinking, this skill will enable workers to develop creative solutions and to think outside of the box.
· Written and verbal communication: This is another foundational skill to enable workers to effectively share information and insights and to support effective decision making.
· Knowledge management: The capture and provision of historic plant knowledge through digital means or new concerted capability development programs will be needed as workers either retire and/or leave to change careers. Less staff on-site requires expanding their scope of control and knowledge to become multidisciplinary and work on tasks of higher priority, complexity, and decision making.
· Prioritisation: The ability to be able to prioritise responses to system, process and equipment challenges, and needs.

Oct-2024
Marie Duverne, Axens, marie.duverne@axens.net

Several key areas of expertise leveraging technology and technical assistance can help mitigate plant/facility staffing levels. Solutions provided in this field include data analytics capabilities through Axens’ proprietary Connect’In digital capability, including:

- Access to technical assistance that can connect you with experts who have up-to-date knowledge on the latest technologies and best practices, which may not be available in-house.

- Advanced process control (APC) systems: Implementing APC technology can optimise refinery operations, reducing the need for constant manual adjustments and allowing fewer operators to manage more complex processes efficiently.

- Digital twin technology: Creating virtual replicas of refinery units enables remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, and optimisation of operations with reduced on-site personnel.

- By outsourcing certain technical functions, plant managers can keep their permanent staff focused on core business activities while relying on external experts for specialised tasks. In view of that, leveraging cloud platforms proposed by technology suppliers or process licensors for knowledge sharing, remote troubleshooting, and expert consultation can provide on-demand technical assistance without requiring additional on-site staff. Implementing AI/ML algorithms on these platforms for process optimisation, anomaly detection, and decision support can enhance operator effectiveness and reduce the need for constant supervision.

Oct-2024