AUTOMATION TRENDS PG&E’s Uses Aveva’s Simulation-Based Operator Training System

With more than 15 million customers spread out over a 70,000 square mile area and served by more than 6,800 miles of gas transmission pipelines and 42,000 miles of gas distribution pipeline, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) has established a massive operations network. Because natural gas can be dangerous, operator skills are critical to ensuring that potentially dangerous situations are avoided or minimized as much as possible.

Patrick Rouanzoin, gas control operations specialist at PG&E, said the company is now using Aveva’s Operator Training System (OTS) simulation software to train and qualify its pipeline operators.

PG&E uses the Aveva OTS to “expose control room personnel to real life normal, abnormal, and emergency operating conditions,” said Rouanzoin during his presentation at the Aveva World 2022 event in San Francisco. Without a simulation-based OTS, “we have to train on real equipment—and that can be dangerous,” he added. “The OTS provides a safer training environment and increases reliability by minimizing loss of continuity of operations.”

According to Rouanzoin, prior to the deployment of the Aveva OTS, operators were trained for abnormal events by reviewing previous events. “But copies of tends, alarms, and operator actions only carry

By David Greenfield, editor in chief

so much weight,” he said. “Even playback doesn’t put the operator in the moment. They can’t feel the experience as it would happen in real life. The OTS puts the person in a real event. The modeling of pipeline controls and alarms allows operators to see a line rupture in real time and what it would look like in terms of the incoming data, alarms, and trends.”

With the Aveva OTS, an operator can position simulated valves and start/stop compression in the same manner as they would with the realworld system. Plus, they see the results of their actions.

“Operators can also learn what other areas of the system they should focus on depending on location of the event,” added Rouanzoin. “The entire control room sta can learn e ective teamwork to minimize response time and coordinate e orts.”

Rouanzoin noted that PG&E has created a specific room for OTS training that is similar in layout to PG&E’s actual control room with multiple operator consoles “to get operators working together through an event.” He added that reception to the OTS from operators has been positive and PG&E is planning to use OTS situations to qualify operators.

“Our expectation is that the OTS will improve operator response in real emergencies and help eliminate second guessing,” said Rouanzoin.

By David Greenfield, editor in chief

Artificial intelligence is being widely applied across industrial technologies—from quality inspections to data analytics. Now, Eschbach, provider of Shiftconnector software for communication between production shifts and teams, announces that artificial intelligence (AI) has been incorporated into Shiftconnector to improve its search capabilities.

Andreas Eschbach, CEO of Eschbach, said the addition of AI to Shiftconnector grew from seeing the di culties operators in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries experienced when trying to gain access to operations data from five or more years ago.

The new Shiftconnector software “pre-processes inputs for use by AI to give better search results and expose workers to more targeted info,” said Eschbach. “Worker inputs into Shiftconnector are made machine readable for use by the embedded AI technology to enable advanced search capabilities across new and old shift data, meaning that the queries now run across years of knowledge records. This has helped workers see—not just data from the past few months—but from past several years to better understand issues. This essentially helps connect current crews with retired crews by making historical data more accessible.”

By retrieving the most relevant information to the task and presenting it to the worker, Eschbach said the software can accelerate operations and help teams recover from disruptions by immediately identifying appropriate fixes. This is enabled, not only by worker inputs into Shiftconnector, but also via data delivered from asset management software such as the Aveva PI System, Maximo, and SAP.

“Beyond identifying areas where workers need to focus, Shiftconnector also delivers directed tasks to optimize what workers should focus on based on real-time incoming data,” said Eschbach. “This helps workers identify areas for continuous improvement. As di erent teams work to develop unified responses, act on unexpected events, and maintain a cohesive workflow throughout multiple shifts, the natural language processing made possible by the inclusion of AI becomes essential.” sive 3D worlds that allow users to interact with complex equipment and large machines. The Unity engine allows development of cross-platform training applications for mobile devices, desktops, and/or web browsers. Training simulations can walk workers through safety procedures, operations, and maintenance, as well as repair and assembly processes.

As an example, Juego Studios developed a 3D simulation training module for employees working on drilling operations with RFID tagged pipes. The training module simulates the industrial environment with 3D images of equipment and tools. It also provides instructions for fitting RFID tagged pipes and drilling operations.

Another company in the simulation arena, Simutech Multimedia, uses gamification in its simulation software to train manufacturing workers. The company’s Simutech Training System teaches troubleshooting skills to workers operating and maintaining industrial control systems.

The system takes trainees through a six-step approach to troubleshooting circuits and helps them develop e ective techniques for safely navigating industrial electrical controls, motors, and programmable logic controller (PLC) circuits. Workers can personalize training progress and managers can continuously monitor their development.