Podcast: The Hidden Costs and Risks of Cross-Training Operators

Cross-training process plant operators sounds simple, but execution is often flawed. Human factors engineer Dave Strobhar explains that effective cross-training must be based on job complexity and demonstrated competency — not arbitrary time requirements. Common pitfalls include inconsistent crew procedures that cause negative transfer of training, inadequate alarm management for operators returning to console roles and subjective assessments that fail to verify true proficiency. Decision-making exercises offer a low-cost way to prepare crews for high-stakes, low-frequency events. Looking ahead, Strobhar predicts automation and AI will fundamentally reshape operator roles, demanding more technical knowledge and sharper system-oversight skills from tomorrow's workforce.

Transcript

Welcome to the Operator Training edition of Chemical Processing's Distilled Podcast. This podcast and its transcript can be found at ChemicalProcessing.com. You can also download this podcast on your favorite player. I'm Traci Purdum, editor-in-chief of CP, and joining me once again is Dave Strobhar, founder and principal human factors engineer for Beville Engineering. Dave is also the founder of the Center for Operator Performance and operator training columnist for Chemical Processing. Hey, Dave, thanks for joining me again for one of our monthly chats.

Dave: Well, I appreciate it, Traci. I always enjoy them.

Traci: The last few times we've talked about training myths and guidelines, and now we're going to get into cross-training. And on the surface, cross-training sounds straightforward: teach your operators to cover multiple positions, build flexibility into your workforce, and reduce single points of failure. What does effective cross-training actually mean for a process plant operator, and how does it differ from just rotating people through different roles?

Dave: Well, what it means for the process plant operator is more overtime and higher cost. Since the OSHA 1910 process safety management regulations have come out, you need to ensure that your operators are qualified. That's a reasonable statement — everybody always thought that. And so how do I prove that they can work these multiple jobs? Well, I have to send them through new training. I can't just have them shadow somebody else and go, "Hey, do you think you know it now?" "Yeah, I think I got this."

So if you want people to learn another job — which, as you indicated, adds a lot of flexibility, because if somebody calls in sick and we both know multiple jobs, we can shuffle things around and not have to bring someone in on overtime — with the cross-training requirement, I now have to take somebody off shift, put them through training and cover their job while they're in it. So there's the potential for some significantly increased costs. But some of those costs are necessary, and some are probably more than what's required. There's probably a lot of opportunity to save on cross-training costs.

Avoid Failure in Cross Training

Traci: Now, operator workload varies significantly across positions. When you're designing a cross-training program, how do you account for these differences so that you're not setting people up to fail in an unfamiliar role?

Dave: Well, that's one of the major problems. A lot of cross-training — which gets back to basic operator training — is viewed as something based upon time. In other words, if you spend four months in a training program, you obviously know that job. But as you say, different jobs have different complexity and different workload. Some jobs may take six months to grasp; some may take two months. Too often, it's done purely on time — you've spent so much time, therefore you must know the material.

I recently spoke with a refinery that was talking about cross-training and how much time it was going to take. I made the comment: don't make it based on a set period of time; have it reflect the job demands. If your training program is set up correctly with good learning objectives and good testing, that should be quite easy. But there is still this mindset — "you can't teach an operator to do that in two months." Well, if he passes all the tests, then yes, I think he can. And similarly, just because you give someone four months doesn't mean they've grasped it yet. You want to make sure they have the necessary skills and knowledge to do the job.

Traci: You're talking about the fact that you can't really base training on timing. Everybody learns differently. Are there any common gaps you see when plants attempt to cross-train? Is it procedural knowledge, situational awareness or something else?

Dave: Well, one of the problems — and this is probably becoming less common — is that different crews do things in different ways. So you may be trained with one crew, learn how to do things a certain way, and then when you cross-train on a new job and work with a new crew, they don't do it that way.

One refinery had a situation during an upset where operators could go on what they called short-loop circulation or long-loop circulation. Interestingly, one crew always went on long-loop circulation and the other crew always went on short-loop circulation. And of course, the first thing that pops to mind is: What if I learned one approach and now I'm covering a shift where the crew does it the other way?

The official term for that is negative transfer of training — when you apply what you were trained on, but instead of being a benefit, it becomes a detriment. So you have to be careful about consistency in how we approach the tasks we're expected to do.

Traci: Not only how they approach the tasks, but that has to create some complications for the operator's ability to interpret and respond to alarms, right?

Dave: Oh, yes, absolutely. And that's probably one of the most difficult areas, because a lot of plants now have dedicated console operators — that's all they do. Some other plants rotate people through: work the console one week, work outside jobs the other three weeks, then back to the console. But if on one of those console rotations the operator was on vacation, they're now away from it for eight weeks. It gets even worse — at one refinery, some of their console substitutes who were quote-unquote "qualified" could be away from the console for nine months. They said things change so fast on the console that they were just crossing their fingers on the job.

There is a real problem, particularly with the console: What do these alarms mean? Has the system been acting up? Is there something I need to be doing? Are they really performing at the level you want?

It's not as big an issue in the field, because things tend to be a little more static — not that you don't have management of change and all of that. But from a console standpoint, many operators say it's very hard to keep up with process changes if you've been away from it for any extended period of time.

Human Factors Risks

Traci: Now, you like human factors — we talk about human factors a lot. What are some of the human factors risks with control room display design when operators are cross-trained to cover a unit with a different display layout or control system? How should plants work around this and make sure human factors isn't the bottom-line risk they're dealing with?

Dave: The major human factors risks in the control room are actually pretty simple when you break them down. If you look at all the major accidents, the console operator really only has three things they have to do: detect that something's wrong, identify what it is, and respond to it. And if you look at most of the major incidents across the industry, it's usually a breakdown of the first or second step — either they failed to detect the problem and didn't even know anything was wrong, or they knew there was a problem but couldn't figure out what it was, or they misidentified it.

That's what happened with the Three Mile Island operators. They knew something was wrong; they just misdiagnosed what it was and took the wrong actions. So as operators are expected to learn different displays and different ways of interpreting them, those two things become critical.

Can I detect the problem, or is it going to get lost in an alarm flood? One refinery had an alarm on their alarm summary screen for eight hours telling operators they were losing water in their treated water tank. After eight hours, they ran out of water and all the boilers shut down. If you'd tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Hey, I don't think you have any water," they would have reacted immediately. They just didn't know they had a problem because that alarm came in amid a burst of alarms and didn't go away like the others did.

And if my displays are very difficult to use, there's the opportunity for misdiagnosis. Back in the day — and this is changing — displays were actually built with training as one of the objectives. Well, if you're using your displays both for training and for operating, you're not going to do either one very well. Once a person becomes qualified, they're going to want a more compact, easier-to-navigate display system. When you're training them, yes, you may need more detail until they grasp it — but trying to use the same display for both results in bad training and bad operation.

Traci: Yeah. And preparing operators for those high-stakes, low-frequency scenarios — what do you do there? It seems like it's something that really needs to be addressed.

Dave: Well, one of the new techniques that's emerged within the last 10 years is called decision-making exercises. People ask, "Isn't that just a what-if drill?" And the answer is no. A what-if drill tells you: if this happens, what do you do? Decision-making exercises give you symptoms — this pressure is high, this temperature is high — and simply ask, "What do you think is happening?"

What we've found is that while these exercises were initially designed to train individuals, they really help in training a crew. People who may not be qualified on that particular job start hearing what the other person is looking for, and a light bulb goes off: "Oh, so that's why he's asking me to go out and get a sample." Or, "I understand now what they're doing and where I can insert myself."

So for these high-stakes, low-frequency scenarios, decision-making exercises are one of the best ways to help operators help each other. They get to think through: When do I need to supply information to someone else? When do I need information, and what information do I need? It allows you to prepare for something that hopefully never happens — and at a very low cost. A lot of companies are investing in this so people can think through high-stakes events and know that even if their own position doesn't have much to do during a given scenario, they can shift over and help the operator who does.

Assessing Effectiveness

Traci: Are there any metrics or assessments that help verify that cross-training is actually working?

Dave: There are, but not very many people are using them. This gets back to something we've discussed in other podcasts: Are you doing an accurate assessment of whether operators have the skills they need? There are really two pieces to that, and the Air Force has done a lot of work here.

First, did they actually absorb the training? That requires a good test that can measure it objectively. Second, are those skills what they actually need on the job? That's where you want some sort of KPI that will help you understand whether the training is making them perform better. Both require objective measures and objective testing.

I've shared this with your audience before, Traci: There was a refinery where a qualified operator was transferring — which doesn't happen very often — from one refinery to a different one. They debated what training he'd need to go through. Finally, they decided just to give him their standard program. When they put him through it, he failed. That was a wake-up call, because he had been successful and was considered qualified at one plant, and then at a different plant he couldn't demonstrate what was needed.

That's where objective measures of performance matter — you can tell whether someone really knows the information. So much assessment now is subjective. Someone interviews the person, talks to them about something, and says, "Oh yeah, they know that." But you may have a bias toward making sure that person gets through. We need something independent, objective and measurable so we know they really have the skills and knowledge required.

Traci: I remember that conversation — it was very enlightening because I'm sure it happens more often than we'd care to admit. Now I want you to put a different hat on. Looking ahead at wants and needs for the industry, how do you see technology — or what would you like to see technology and anything else — changing the way we cross-train and design and deliver this type of training?

Dave: Well, I think the nature of the operator's job is going to change dramatically in the next 10 years, and the training goals are going to have to shift along with it.

For a long time, the basic operating crew worked like this: field operators provided sensory input to the console operators. They'd go out and look, smell, listen, and touch — pumps to see if they were vibrating, for example — then relay that information: "Hey, that pump sounds funny," or "Man, it smells like methyl mercaptan out here. What's going on?"

Technology will replace a lot of that. You're going to have drones, and — I don't know if you've seen the robot dog that runs through plants — those will have all the sensors. Your pumps are going to have vibration meters. I don't need somebody to put their hand on a pump to say, "I think these bearings are going."

So that part of the job — just being eyes, ears and hands — is going to go away. What needs to happen instead is a rather significant shift. Operators are going to take on different roles: mechanical reliability, control technology, looking at and troubleshooting control valves, environmental work around reducing fugitive emissions — that sort of thing.

These new technologies may also change how you organize a crew. Instead of three field operators each covering a portion of the unit doing rounds, maybe one operator handles all the rotating equipment across the entire unit, another looks at all the control valves in the field, and someone else handles all the electrical issues across the unit.

And the training for these individuals is going to need to change as well — it's going to be much more technically oriented. Up until now, if you could just find a piece of equipment, some considered you qualified. No — you're going to have to know what that equipment is for, what it does and what your options are.

Obviously, AI is going to assist console operators. But one of the key things operators will need to do is spot when the automated system isn't working properly. Everything — AI, advanced process controllers — is premised on certain assumptions, and you need somebody to say, "Hey, wait a minute, that assumption isn't valid anymore."

Our ability to spot those unique situations is going to require more from operators, because they'll have to look across a broader range of problems. It's not just, "This flow valve isn't letting enough flow through" — there are automated systems to tell you that. Operators will need to look at the whole plant and ask, "Are we going in the right direction, or is automation taking us the wrong way?"

I'll give you a quick aviation example. There is a system on aircraft that, upon the loss of one engine, under certain circumstances will automatically shut down the other engine — not what you want. That's where you get this conflict between different automated systems, and you need a person to step in and say, "No, that's wrong."

But on the flip side, at Three Mile Island, the operator thought the automated system was wrong — and it was right. So the ability for the AI assistant and the operator to be on the same page is really critical, and that's going to be a whole new area for both training and how we present information.

Traci: Well, Dave, you always keep us going in the right direction and help us with those light-bulb moments in training. I appreciate the thoughtful conversation we always have. Audience members, if you want to stay on top of operator training and performance, subscribe to this free podcast via your favorite podcast platform to learn best practices and keen insights. You can also visit us at ChemicalProcessing.com for more tools and resources aimed at helping you achieve success. On behalf of Dave, I'm Traci, and this is Chemical Processing's Distilled Podcast, Operator Training Edition. Thanks for listening. Thanks again, Dave.

Dave: Thanks, Traci.