Designing training for process control simulators: a review of empirical findings and current practices

Abstract

Although simulators have been widely used as training environments in different industries (e.g. oil and nuclear power), there is little rigorous empirical work evaluating the effectiveness of the training methods employed. This article examines the use of simulator training in process control environments. The results of an exploratory field study are reported and the current practices of simulator training are described. The study revealed that simulator training varied considerably across organisations, often with little theoretical or empirical work to guide training design. To evaluate the utility and effectiveness of different methods of simulator training in process control environments, the article also presents a literature review of the research on laboratory- and field-based training. Several training methods are identified as having particular potential for temporal and adaptive transfer and are to be empirically tested in future studies.

Keywords:

• process control
• simulator
• training requirement analysis
• training methods
• temporal transfer
• adaptive transfer

Acknowledgement

This project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.