COMPUTER-BASED TRAINING FOR OPERATORS IN PID CONTROL – REQUIREMENTS, DESIGN, AND EVALUATION

Well performing control loops are a key factor for economically operating plants. However, field surveys revealed that just one third of all control loops works satisfactorily. Awareness of the personnel that are most familiar with the plant, such as panel operators, is a first step towards improvement. However, no courses that cover PID controller tuning and control performance monitoring are available for this particular user group. For this reason, a new computer-based training (CBT) was developed. This article sketches the requirements and the developed novel design for this particular user group. The process of evaluating the CBT and the gained results within a series of field tests with apprentices, operators, and students are summarized.