Operator competency management

A computer program product, comprising:

• executable code transportable by a non-transitory machine readable medium, wherein execution of said code by at least one programmable computing device causes said computing device to perform a sequence of steps for operator competency management for operators involved in a physical process run in a processing facility including a plurality of controlled process variables, said sequence of steps comprising:
• running an Operator Competency Model (OCM) which includes at least one simulated competency exercise including a plurality of simulated tasks for an operator in said processing facility running said physical process, wherein each of said plurality of simulated tasks are mapped to an assessment tool, wherein said assessment tools collectively include at least one subjective assessment tool and at least one automatically generated assessment tool;
• responsive to said operator performing said simulated competency exercise, evaluating a performance of said operator for said plurality of simulated tasks using respective ones of said assessment tools to generate competency data for said operator,
• wherein said competency data includes an automatically generated portion corresponding to data generated by said automatically generated assessment tool and a subjective assessment portion corresponding to data generated by said subjective assessment tool.

A simulation system for operator competency management for a processing facility running a physical process, comprising:

• a system controller including a computing system having a processor and associated memory storing a software application, said system controller running said software application implementing:
• an Operator Competency Model (OCM) which includes at least one simulated competency exercise including a plurality of simulated tasks for an operator in said processing facility running said physical process, wherein each of said plurality of simulated tasks are mapped to an assessment tool, wherein said assessment tools collectively include at least one subjective assessment tool and at least one automatically generated assessment tool;
• responsive to said operator performing said simulated competency exercise, evaluating a performance of said operator for said plurality of simulated tasks using respective ones of said assessment tools to generate competency data for said operator,
• wherein said competency data includes an automatically generated portion corresponding to data generated by said automatically generated assessment tool and a subjective assessment portion corresponding to data generated by said subjective assessment tool;
• at least one first input/output device including a data entry device communicably coupled to said system controller for displaying information for said operator performing said simulated competency exercise and for coupling inputs from said operator to said system controller, and
• at least one second input/output device including a data entry device communicably coupled to said system controller for inputting inputs from a supervisor to provide said subjective assessment portion to said system controller.