Book Image

Operator Training Simulator Handbook

By : Joseph Philip
Book Image

Operator Training Simulator Handbook

By: Joseph Philip

Overview of this book

Operator training simulators in the process industry have been around since the 1970s, but you may not find a book that documents the development of these systems and the standard best practices. The Operator Training Simulator Handbook covers best practices for OTS engineering and OTS training development and delivery, starting from the basic the jargon and the different types of OTS systems. It will take you through the best approaches to project specification as well as building, maintenance, planning, and delivering these systems by sharing real-life experiences and dos and don’ts. As you advance, you'll uncover the various challenges in the planning and delivery of operator training models and understand how to address those by working through real-world projects. This book helps in specifying the best fit for purpose, choosing a cost-effective system when acquiring an OTS. You'll also learn how you can turn your OTS projects into digital twins before finally learning all about documentation in a typical OTS project, covering the sample structure that you can use as a starting point in your projects. By the end of the book, you'll have learned best practices for developing operator training simulator systems and have a reference guide to overcome common challenges.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction, Definitions, and Classifications
3
Section 2: Best Practices for the Development of OTS Systems
6
Section 3: OTS' Future, Training Model, and Reference Documents

Third-party representation

In addition to the ICSS, usually, there are third-party compressor controls, turbine controls, power management systems, or other controls that need to be simulated, and this control is outside the scope of the ICSS.

This can be represented in two ways:

  • Simplified and modeled in the process model
  • Using the supplier emulation and integrating this into the simulator

The first option is cheaper, but its effectiveness is lower. The second is expensive but is far more effective.

On one FPSO project, the compressor controls were CCC, and the emulation of the CCC was used. While this solution was expensive, we could tune the compressor controls within a week onshore using the simulator. The tuning parameters were used offshore, and a huge saving of cost was achieved.

In the much less stressful simulation environment, we needed a week to tune the compressors. Now imagine doing this offshore while trying to commission or start up the compressor. This will take at least 3 additional weeks, if not more.

In the simulation environment, we could run the compressor sequence as many times as we want in a day. This is impossible offshore.