All of our economic growth and life development comes from our ability to use machines. Our ability to work efficiently depends on the future development of machines. But do we have gratitude towards the machines that give us this growing wealth? No! If they once do not operate as fast as expected, we get easily angry – much more angry than towards people that work a bit slowly. Machines today get more complex and more automated to handle much broader working processes. Today we have become more addicted and dependent on the machines to do our daily work, at the office, at the plant, on the construction site and even at home.
The port industry has for many years focused attention on how to automise some of the processes within container handling. It has had great success in this and the result is that many of the operations that used to be manually operated, are now automatic. The port handles more cargo, but there are still bottlenecks. The biggest bottleneck of them all is man. A good crane operator is nearly worth his weight in gold (well, so long as he is not too heavy). Therefore if ports are to maximise the benefits of their investment in new equipment, the skills of the crane operators are more important than ever. A well-trained operator can handle between 20% and 30% more containers than the average one, and that will give instants results on the bottom line.
In most ports the majority of the workforce is five to 10 years from retirement. In some ports 70% of the crane operators are aged over 45. Managing this skills age gap will become a major challenge. The only way to secure these skills is to focus on training and education.
The typical classroom training has its benefits, but it also has some obvious constraints. The needed ‘hands on’ skills are impossible to deliver.
On-the-job training, in comparison, gives the necessary ‘hands on’ training, but there are clear practical limitations for the operator. There are important ingredients missing: emergency training, learning from mistakes and the opportunity to push ones ability to the limit to gain more knowledge of one’s limitations and abilities.
The best solution is to combine classroom training with on-the-job training and simulator aided training (SAT). With this approach, there are no limitations to your training skills and this leads to more fully trained operators.
Why simulator aided training?
The benefits of SAT are perhaps obvious but worth spelling out:
• Serious mistakes can be made on a simulator without risk of damage to equipment, loads, or personnel.
• Operators are able to train safely in dangerous and emergency conditions.
• A simulator can offer a wide variety of infrequent situations and conditions.
• Areas of weak performance can be identified and rehearsed repeatedly.
• The simulator is an excellent screening tool.
• Simulators can be used year round with low operating and maintenance costs.
Simulator users
The airline and defence industries have used simulator aided training for decades, and have a track record of experience that proves that SAT is their most valuable tool in lowering their total cost of ownership by: maximising and maintaining operator productivity; reducing the cost of training; improving safety; and extending the life of expensive capital stock.
The offshore energy industry has also been an early adopter of SAT due to the high incidence of lifting related injuries and deaths caused by an extremely hostile working environment – and the subsequent impact of these accidents on mission critical drilling and production equipment.
Simulator manufacturer Hitec’s first offshore crane simulator was purchased by the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate and put into service last year at the Ship Manoeuvring School in Trondheim, Norway. The first corporate user of this equipment was Statoil, which operates 15 large production platforms in the North Sea producing 1.5m barrels of oil a day and 120m cubic metres of gas per day. Statoil has 50 large offshore cranes operated by more than 450 personnel. These crews handle 6,600 vessel landings each year, which represents 300,000t of outgoing deck cargo and 700,000t of bulk supplies – a mission critical function of the platform, and indeed of the Norwegian economy.
More than 200 Statoil personnel received simulator training in 2001 along with 100 personnel from other oil companies. These customers provided the Ship Manoeuvring School with 650 pre-bookings for 2002. The simulator currently provides training for more than 700 crane operators per year and a second simulator is on order.
The response from the operating personnel has been very positive, indicated by the fact that almost all of Statoil’s available courses were fully booked during the first year of operation. It can also often be observed that many candidates make erroneous actions in the first scenarios but improve their performance significantly during the course. In 2001 two near miss accidents were reported in Statoil’s operations offshore. In both cases the crane operators said that their training in the simulator was instrumental in their correct response and handling of the situation. Although the simulator is a completely new concept, it has been operating with high reliability and little downtime.
Training courses
Three main types of courses have been developed:
• Introductory course
The main objective of the introductory courses is to give training and insight for line managers responsible for crane and lifting operations. It is also useful in giving banksmen a better understanding of how the crane and cargo behave, and making them more familiar with the crane operator’s function. This is also a safe way to start the initial training for personnel that are applying for a crane certificate.
• Retraining course
The retraining courses are aimed at experienced crane operators and have been made mandatory every third year as a company minimum requirement. Much emphasis is put into drilling good working skills and communication routines, including pre-job communication with the supply vessel and safe job analysis when lifting under marginal conditions. High priority is also given to scenarios with critical situations to drill efficient action patterns, so as to minimise damage should an unexpected situation arise.
• Simultaneous training supply/crane
The most advanced type of training is the simultaneous training between platform personnel and supply boat crew. In this setting, three crane operators cooperate with three supply boat masters and three able seamen. Normal operations and routines, as well as various critical situations, are covered. One of the major objectives of these courses is to establish better contact and communication between platform personnel and supply vessel crew.
Scope of training
The simulator training covers:
• Planning and preparations prior to operations
• Communication routines and practices
• Operational limitations during crane operations
• Internal transportation on the installation
• Loading and unloading of supply vessels
• Various special lifting operations
• Transporting personnel
• Handling various critical situations
• Crane operations on fixed and floating installations.
During stand-alone crane simulator classes, three operators train under the guidance of one instructor. Each two-hour session in the simulator is carried out based on a predefined scenario with defined training aspects and elements. The concept is based on action learning by creating a setting similar to the operational situation offshore. During the actual simulations the operators switch roles as crane operator, banksmen and able seaman, so as to get a good understanding of not only the crane operator’s work but also the work of the other members involved in the lifting operations. During the debriefing following the exercise, each participant evaluates his own performance and feedback is given by the instructor. Emphasis is also put on achieving dialogue and reflection in the team that is training together. In this way experiences are shared between operators that often come from different installations with different practices. This seems to be an effective way of gaining acceptance and ownership of the established company best practice. Often suggestions for improvements are surfaced here and recorded by the instructor for later consideration by Statoil’s Best Practice Field Group.
The results
The overall objective of the Statoil project was to facilitate better safety in crane and lifting operations. The results so far have been very promising. Figure 1 over the page shows the total number of crane and lifting incidents on Statoil production installations between 1991 and 2000. Figure 2 shows the absolute number of personnel injuries due to lifting operations in the period 1991 to 2001. Figure 3 shows the recorded number of personnel injuries/lost time accidents due to crane and lifting operations, divided by the total number of man-hours (million) worked on the production installations in the period 1994 to 2001.
Generally the safety results have been improving for several years, with a very significant reduction in the number of injuries in 2001. Although various factors have contributed to this positive improvement, there is reason to believe that simulator training and improved working practice are major contributors.
The Norwegian government has also recognised the simulator as a valuable tool in the work to promote offshore safety by recommending its use to all companies operating on the continental shelf.
The port industry is able to derive the same, if not even better, results from SAT as the offshore energy industry. Ports with simulator aided training centres include Rotterdam, Antwerp, Shanghai and Barcelona. A study performed by North American harbours evaluated operators of harbour cranes before and after simulator aided training. The results showed that operators were, on average, nearly 50% more efficient after the SAT course. With bigger and bigger ships arriving, this will become a competitive edge in the future.
Safety is another important issue. The US study showed a decrease in operator errors of an average of 70%.
The difference in skill levels is shown through the Pacific Maritime Association’s qualifying test results, before and after simulator aided training. Before SAT, the pass rate was less than 65%. After SAT, the pass rate was 90%.
Another analysis of the results showed that the ‘post simulator operator’ will be 22% more productive. For a port the size of Barcelona with a transport volume of 76.3m tonnes last year, that result translates as maybe an extra 17m tonnes passing through the port, a clear competitive advantage over other ports in the area.
Conclusions
The results can be summarised as follows:
• Operator errors decreased 65% to 95%
• Number of accidents decreased 25% to 50%
• Efficiency of the port increased by up to 30%.
Is simulator aided training enough? No, it is just one important factor in improving performance. By investing 3% to 5% of the amount that in recent years are invested in port facilities, one can increase the payback of all the investment by at least 10%, without increasing input. Companies tend to invest heavily in facilities and physical assets but seem to miss the opportunity to improve their human capital. If you forget the human capital, you fail to optimise your investments. It is like the farmer who sells his horse to buy a tractor, but does not invest in a new plough.
