Even though the COVID-19 pandemic ended more than three years ago, its severe shrinking effect on the average tenure of process industry professionals and other manufacturing employees continues to this day. This situation is especially true for operations team members, according to Jon Hall, VP at Adatafy, Novaspect’s data management, data analytics/AI and workflow brand.

“It used to be common for end users to have veteran team members with 20-plus years of experience, but we saw an accelerating decline in tenure during the pandemic,” says Hall. “There were so many retirements that many manufacturers had to bring new people into critical roles faster, which increased the need for consistent training, mentoring and knowledge transfer to help more staffers succeed in their positions.”

Hall reports another response to these workforce shortages is increased interest in and use of process simulators for training and augmented reality (AR) environments to allow support from remote subject matter experts (SME), though these tools aren’t mainstream yet in all industries. Training managers are trying different techniques, but they also have to contend with inherent differences in training needs for operations roles compared to maintenance and other positions.

“Manufacturers are hopeful that more young people will want to get into the trades. That said, it seems to be easier to find maintenance and reliability candidates and harder to find people that want to work in operations,” explains Hall. “Plants require onsite work and 24/7 shift coverage is necessary. This scenario isn’t ideal for some. There also isn’t a widely established educational pathway for most operations roles, so much of the training needs to happen on the job.”

Education is for everyone

Despite these challenges, there are still many training opportunities for process industry applications, and they can typically be tailored to whatever skills are required. These include industry-specific courses on standards and norms, onsite instruction and virtual equivalents, and engineering and end-user support for individual companies’ applications.

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“Students, candidates and new hires can learn about process and final control elements, such as valves, process control and optimization, and preventive maintenance and condition monitoring of critical assets,” adds Hall. “However, there are many recent technological enhancements that we’ve all had to upskill on, such as we’re generally not using standalone computers anymore in the OT space, and are instead using PCs and mobile devices connected to servers running virtual machines (VM), typically leveraging hyperconverged infrastructures (HCI). We’re still operating PLCs and DCSs, of course, but software-defined layers are being used for infrastructure, so engineers and system administrators must learn about them to support their automation infrastructures.”

Hall reports end users not only need to manage technology updates with SCADA and DCS, but also need to harmonize these platforms with manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP), computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), connected worker, daily work and other OT software platforms as they digitalize manufacturing environments.

“The best way to deal with all this change and progression is to provide as much training and mentoring that we can because mastering these disciplines requires intention,” explains Hall. “Training and mentoring for operators is especially difficult because much of their training has traditionally been on the job. We can help this process by training board operators in simulated environments, which helps them gain confidence by putting them in scenarios and upset situations they can practice with and be tested on. These simulations can be built for any type of process, and the training consoles, interfaces, instruments, drives and vessels that are used look and respond like those used in the real operating processes.”

While dynamic simulation software such as DeltaV Mimic or AspenTech Hysys support training for specific operating scenarios, Hall reports that Adatafy also helps manufacturers apply connected worker and daily work softwares, which include learning and skills-management support along with AR functionality for remote support. These platforms also track team members’ skill levels and certifications, help develop, adjust and ease access to standard operating procedures (SOP), and determine the best ways to guide, train and develop employees whether they have four weeks, 18 months or five years of experience.

“We’ve got a couple key aspirational goals when it comes to workforce development. The first is managing and supporting career progressions, and teaching team members skills needed to align with what they’re wanting to accomplish long-term,” adds Hall. “Instead of primarily focusing on recruiting, managers and leaders also need to focus on the skills needed to support existing team members, so they can move forward in their careers, too. The second goal is simply keeping up with current technology, and developing the skills that will be most effective in enabling people to do their jobs more effectively, safely and efficiently.”