Panel Operator Certification

Overview:

Course Objectives:

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:

• communicate and work effectively with shift colleagues,
• explain in detail the processes using various documents (PFDs, P&IDs, control schemes, logic diagrams),
• identify risks related to equipment operation and process; to enforce adequate preventive actions,
• adjust the plant process parameters to optimize production rate, product quality and operating costs, minimize losses and releases,
• analyze the process key parameters to determine disturbance causes, and take appropriate corrective and preventive actions,
• prepare, start, and shut down a unit in safe conditions.

Target Audience:

• This course makes possible a rapid mastery of panelist skills. The facilities are optimized and operated in a pro-active way.
• Successful participants will be granted the “Panel Operator” Certification.

Course Outlines:

Unit 1:

• WELCOME (if in OLEUM facilities)

  • • Welcome,/safety. PPE distribution. Presentation of the training.

• PANEL OPERATOR DUTIES & CONTROL ROOM ACTIVITIES

  • • Panel operator role within the operation team; control room staff. Reporting and handover duties.
    • Plant documentation: inventory, content, usage, role, and duties of the panel operator.

Unit 2:

• BASIC PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

  • • Notions of industrial chemistry. Fluid mechanics: pressure, flowrates, fluid flow, pressure drops.
    • Heat exchange: exchange mechanisms, resistance to heat transfer.
    • Liquid-vapor equilibrium of pure substances and mixtures.
    • Simulators: impact of operating parameters on the chemical reaction performances, heat exchanges through various types of heat exchangers, separation in a flash drum.

Unit 3:

• PROCESS CONTROL, AUTOMATION & DCS USAGE

  • • Process control:
    • Constitution of a control loop, symbols used. Sensors and transmitters. Control valves.
    • Controllers operating principles, inputs/outputs, internal parameters, and tuning.
    • Complex control loops (cascade, split range, multiple calculation blocks). Advanced control basics.
    • Simulators: Valves characteristic curves. PID parameters tuning. Heat exchanger duty control. Split range configuration. Behavior analysis of complex control loops.
    • Distributed Control System (DCS):
    • Architecture and system components. Man-Machine Interface (MMI). Trends tools. Information flux between site and control room.
    • Automation:
    • Safety instrumented systems: PSS, ESD, HIPPS, EDP; architecture and relationship with DCS. Safety logic and cause & effect matrix.
    • PLCs and automation: graft analysis, the study of specific sequences.
    • Simulators: furnace safety logics.

Unit 4:

• EQUIPMENT OPERATION

  • • For each: working principles, technology, ancillary systems, process control scheme monitoring, operation, alarms, safety devices.
    • Pumps, compressors, drivers:
    • Simulators: filters switch, operation of pumps; changes in operating conditions, capacity control of compressors, troubleshooting of a compressor; start-up of a steam turbine driven centrifugal compressor.
    • Thermal equipment: heat exchangers, air coolers, furnaces, boilers:
    • Simulators: fouling of a heat exchanger; changing fuel supplied to burners, coil fouling, start-up and shutdown of a furnace.
    • Specific equipment for a given assignment unit (gas turbines, solid handling, extruders…).

• PRODUCTS & PROCESSES

  • • Composition and Physico-chemical properties of feeds and products.
    • Commercial product quality requirements, specifications, and standard tests. Mixing rules.
    • Process units: role, principles, main equipment, specific hazards. Influence of the main operating parameters on the operation, consequences on process, and products. Material balance.
    • Distillation, absorption, stripping.
    • Utilities: flare systems, air production, effluent treatment units, steam, water treatments…:
    • Simulators: start-up and shutdown, operation and control of various process units (for instance: two-product distillation columns, multi draw-off distillation column, amine absorption, and regeneration, sulfur recovery unit, hydrotreatment unit).

Unit 5:

• INTEGRATED PLANT SAFE OPERATION

  • • Panel operator safe behavior:
    • Radio communication, other communication equipment. Teamwork, responsibility sharing. Transmission of know-how.
    • Alertness, forward-thinking plant operation. Alarm management.
    • Application: role plays using the simulators (with panel operator views and FODs).
    • HSE in operation:
    • Product, equipment, and process-related risks; prevention, and protection.
    • Risks related to the operation of equipment, to decommissioning-commissioning and start-up of equipment, specific prevention measures.
    • Routine operations. Permit to work, work order, consignations, and isolations.
    • Special operations: SIMOPS, black start. Emergency operation and crisis management.
    • Impact of plant operation on gas release into the atmosphere and on the wastewater treatment unit; minimization of releases.
    • Integrated plant operation:
    • Steady state runs: routine checks, operating windows, integrated plant behavior (inertia, interferences).
    • Global performances, margin optimization/impact of quality gaps.
    • Identification, analysis and reaction to upsets and equipment failures; stabilization.
    • Simulators: field round on a running process unit; commissioning, start-up and shutdown procedures, justifications of different steps; inhibition management; operations in downgraded situations; practice of emergency operations.

• ASSESSMENT

  • • Continuous assessment (including practical exercises on simulators).
    • Final test with real-life situation simulation exercises to validate objectives.