Making decisions and managing competences in complex systems is a challenging task to accomplish.\ud
Specifically, the process industry is known for its complexity and sensitivity to critical procedures.\ud
Recent disasters like the ‘‘Deepwater Horizon” (2010, 11 fatalities), BP Texas City (2005, 15 fatalities),\ud
and AZF Toulouse (2001, 29 fatalities), clearly showed the risk to which we are all exposed. The increasing\ud
complexity of processes, due to the simultaneous escalation of automation, optimisation and intensification\ud
processes (followed to face globalisation challenges), are moving the attention to the management of\ud
abnormal situations, which are even more complex in nature and frequent. This increasing complexity,\ud
coupled with the fact that abnormal situations may lead to irreversible losses, is imposing the adoption\ud
of adequate approaches and tools that allow for better learning and properly managing abnormal situations.\ud
The paper presents a simulation-enabled, experiment-based approach that can be used to prevent\ud
and manage risk through competencies management. More specifically, the paper presents the results of\ud
the first experiment campaign performed in a Plant Simulator (PS), the first known in the process industry\ud
domain, and shows the efficacy of using Immersive Virtual Environments (IVE) both to make decisions\ud
and to train teams (not just single operators).\ud
The experiment results presented in the paper show the effectiveness of IVE to increase the competencies\ud
and train operators and managers. In addition, they explain how conveniently the data collected by\ud
means of the PS can be used for making daily decisions to better prevent and manage risks
The use of immersive virtual reality (IVR) for training is an idea that has existed for a long time; the real, unclarified doubt about its use is whether it does really increase performance with respect to traditional methods such as classroom and on-the-job training. The most critical point of traditional training methods is the difficulty to train operators about a system's deviations from nominal conditions. But even the more-advanced simulation-supported training approach, commercially represented by the operator-training simulator (OTS), is not immune to flaws because it is affected both by the subjectivity of the assessment (making useless the operators' benchmarking) and by the impossibility of training simultaneously the field operator (FOP) with the control-room operator (CROP) (i.e., team training). The plant simulator (PS) enables overcoming the inherent limitations of the training methods. But the efficacy of using immersive virtual environments (IVEs) was, and to some extent still is, to be proved. This paper goes in that direction by explaining the preliminary results of an experiment campaign performed in a PS, which demonstrates the clear benefit of using IVR for training (field) operators. The paper even highlights that, if a PS is used, the benefits are not just limited to the training but can also be extended to operations management.
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