“Human error” is a key contributor to incidents and accidents in plants. While different analyses report differing percentages where “abnormal situations” are attributable to “human error”, the numbers are remarkably consistent. For example, a 2010 ARC Advisory Group publication reported that 42% of unscheduled plant shutdowns result from operator error, and a United States Health and Safety Executive report showed 26% of accidents attributable to operational error. If you ask me, these numbers are too high for comfort.

“Human error” is frequently used to point out that somebody made a mistake and sometimes the consequences impact revenue and profit.  And sometimes, it even costs lives.   As I stated in my previous blog – operations staff directly impact safety, profitability and plant availability. While “human error” is an identified cause of loss, the statistics do not provide a solution to the problem.  So, we need to continue to ask ourselves,”how can we, as industry stakeholders, help reduce the causes of these accidents or losses?”

In his 2014 paper – Improving Plant Safety – An Operator-Centric View on Process Safety – Gregor Fernholz analyzed the impact of operator error on plant safety and identified three critical areas that need to be addressed to increase plant safety:

1. Operator Training
2. Validating and Improving Procedures and Rules
3. Improving communication skills and critical situation readiness.

There are numerous ways to provide training to operators and a holistic training approach encompasses classroom training, training on the job and various other means. However, state-of-the-art training (with a clear focus on enhancing plant safety through an operator-centric approach) will include an Operator Training Simulator as a key element.

Operator Training Simulators are a safe and cost effective way to minimize risk and plant downtime.

An Operator Training Simulator accelerates both the time to competence and raises the competency level of an operator. The ARC Advisory Group recently surveyed companies who have invested in Operator Training Simulators (OTS). Two critical results from the survey:

• Over 65% of ...
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