Role of Operator Training Simulator (OTS) in Capability Building towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0)

The manufacturing industry is now shifting towards Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), in which digitization of manufacturing industry has led the industry towards autonomous system driven by big data as well as machine learning. Despite shifting towards fully automated systems, human intervention is required every now and then especially during unforeseen circumstances. Hence the capability building of the plant personnel as well as technical specialist is inevitable, especially when related to plant safety. The use of Operator Training Simulator (OTS) has been in the industry for quite some time for plant personnel capability development. OTS is a system which combines chemical engineering design and knowledge (embedded in a dynamics simulation model) and process control and safety instrumented system (embedded in Distributed Control System (DCS) database), which can be used for plant personnel’s capability development which serves as the Digital Plant. The usage of OTS system is a new way of learning with the realistic feeling of operating the real plant via the Digital Plant without endangering the plant and personnel. By using OTS system, the plant personnel will be able to understand the process control system installed in the plant as well as process interaction between units in the plant since the Digital Plant was developed as close as the real plant to provide the near-real operation experiences. The OTS system is equipped with many functionalities such as malfunction tests, scenario tests, etc. to assess the plant personnel capability in handling unforeseen circumstances such as critical equipment failures and abnormal plant operation. The system also provides capability assessment for each personnel involves in the training which can be used to evaluate the personnel technical and operating capability, and to re-evaluate the steps taken during the training to improve teaching and learning approaches. By integrating chemical engineering knowledge, plant safety instrumented system and capability development program, OTS system will be able to bring capability development program towards achieving safe and reliable IR 4.0. implementation.