Training is critical to building a successful support services business in today’s oil and gas industry. Increasingly complex processes and procedures on drilling rigs and production platforms require frequent up-skilling of engineers and crew members. However, there is even more at stake than operational efficiencies during oil production and many other industry processes.
Inadequate safety or compliance training can be disastrous to crew members and the environment. As the industry’s training needs grow, there is a larger deficit of knowledge and expertise among young workers who are rapidly being recruited to keep up with the current oil and gas boom.
Other challenges include limited training personnel and the need to maximize workers’ time in the field. The industry is responding to these challenges by devoting resources to technologically advanced training methods — e-learning.
E-learning can leverage training resources and mitigate risks without slowing operations, and using advanced 3-D technologies to create training assets also provides a much greater return on every training dollar spent.
And 3-D is just the beginning. Simulations and serious games motivate employees and make an enormous impact on their behaviors. Plus, augmented reality can bridge the training-operations gap.
Immerse learners in technical environment with rich 3-D assets
When the details of equipment or work environments change rapidly, rich media such as 3-D assets create quick, cost-effective change management. A 3-D model of a piece of equipment can be the source for a huge range of imagery, and can be manipulated, updated, and reused as equipment or training needs change.
This is a living asset because unlike photography, there are no limits to the amount of detail, resolution, angles, backgrounds or lighting conditions that can be produced from a 3-D model. These models can be used individually, they can be static or interactive, and they are necessary for producing interactive simulations.
Prepare trainees for real-life decisions with simulations
Richly interactive training prepares oil and gas trainees for real-life operations scenarios using advanced simulation technologies and serious games. Drilling rigs are a perfect example of a highly instrumented environment in which these new training technologies can have a major impact.
Simulations allow trainees to learn complex procedures and processes quickly and without the risk factors of real-life situations or real equipment. And when simulation technologies are delivered within a serious games environment, they create an immersive world in which the learner is in the first-person position, making mission-critical decisions.
Simulations have long been used as a training method in critical, high-risk environments such as flight or medical training. Pilots in training need extensive practice in an extremely risky activity in order to succeed. And critical patient care has enormously increased in quality when nurses and other members of surgical teams are trained with simulations.
When applied in the oil and gas industry, simulations provide the same benefits: risk-free, real-world practice opportunities that greatly increase learners’ success in performing complex, critical field procedures.
The oil and gas industry requires flexible and highly effective training delivery options for workers who spend most of their time in the field, not in an office. Simulation training is ideal for the operation of remotely operated vehicles and tubular handling equipment, for instance.
Training simulations emphasize critical thinking, problem solving, and the correct application of skills to a situation. Practice-oriented training makes the most of workers’ training hours, and it is more efficient than time-consuming synchronous classroom training.
Adult education research has shown that trainees retain significantly more instruction and perform better on competency tests by experiencing simulated real-life scenarios in which they can practice, and even fail, without risk.
Such training rewards the application of both newly acquired skills and previous experience, so learners develop competencies rather than just memorize correct answers. More and more employees, especially those who grew up with gaming technologies, respond with enthusiasm to the challenge of simulations and serious games.
Bridge the training-operations gap with augmented reality
For those in the oil and gas industry, training no longer has to interrupt operations; the two can occur simultaneously. By integrating the real world with the virtual, augmented reality (AR) anchors information when and where people need it. Whereas a simulation is an entirely computer-generated experience, AR superimposes computer-generated information or imagery over the user’s view of the real world.
Influential innovators such as Google, Microsoft, HP, and Logitech are all working on augmented reality displays that help with way-finding and technical visualizations, among other applications.
For instance, operations equipment can be made “intelligent,” orienting workers to how the equipment is constructed, how it functions, and safety precautions for its use. Or a drilling rig can include a virtual health, safety, and environment guide that walks trainees through safety and compliance procedures, pointing out hazardous areas and showing what protective equipment to wear.
AR provides on-demand, on-site training for any number of complex instruments and equipment used during oil exploration and drilling. Job aids delivered via AR have many benefits: they can be easily and remotely updated whenever equipment or procedures change, they mean less reliance on synchronous classroom training that interrupts workers’ productivity, and they accommodate various experience levels and skills. It enables workers to quickly synchronize their tasks with the appropriate equipment and precautions.
Support and track workers with real-time data
The most advanced AR technologies not only provide on-demand training, but allow engineers and crewmembers to access real-time data as well. The same assets developed for training can be used by workers to understand their environment and feed them live digital readouts and instructions on what to do next and how to do it right.
Using this real-time data, it is now possible to track processes and crew tasks, monitor equipment conditions, and even assist in equipment operation. Just as Boeing is equipping their workers with virtual-reality glasses to assemble 747s, it’s very possible that “augmented” drilling rig operators may soon be an oil and gas industry standard.
Merging physical and digital worlds can advance workers’ knowledge and technical acumen in using complex equipment, and it can bridge the oil and gas industry’s experience gap. The possibilities are vast. For example, AR-enhanced protective eyewear can draw from real-time data to display critical information that may be difficult to see in low-light conditions, or provide enhanced situational awareness for safety during hazardous tasks.
At the operational planning and compliance level, real-time safety and security software can be integrated with equipment in order to better plan and coordinate tasks for safety and efficiency, mobilize responses to an emergency, or reconstruct events for incident investigations.
As many in the oil and gas industry are discovering, 3-D assets, interactive simulations, serious games, and augmented reality visualizations are becoming integral tools in improving efficiency, safety and training in the oil and gas industry.
About the Author
Oliver Diaz is CEO and Founder of FuelFX, a 3-D multimedia and interactive firm that brings a unique insight into oil and gas business culture and how to effectively communicate both inside and outside that culture. He and his team at FuelFX are a mix of creative content providers and technologists.
They employ state-of-the-art 3D communications technology such as augmented reality, virtual reality, digital laboratory simulators, parallax web development, and 3-D animations for the world’s largest energy, high-tech and Oil & Gas companies for improved training, business intelligence, and agility.
