The Problem
The refinery liquid assets management systems, namely, TIS (Tanks Information System) and OMM (Oil Movement Management) were deployed at 10 US/Non-US refineries of an oil corporation. As part of this deployment, 60+ users were trained in 2 days fast paced class-room theoretical and practical training. It was noted that
- After class room training, user while on the job gets additional help from supervisor, super user and/or by referring to printed manuals and guides.
- There was no provision for refresher training for the already trained operator or for any transfers or new joiners.
Hence, a need was recognized to develop a blended eLearning Portal that will provide ‘just in time’ OMM-TIS online training for the sites refinery operators, planners and yield accountants.
Challenges
The development of eLearning portal had a very ambitious plan, to make it very comprehensive, detailed, audio enabled, interactive, with all reference and additional help available online, be suitable for on the job certification and should cover all roles of refinery planner, operator and yield accountant. For this purpose 5 projects teams of onshore/offshore design and developers were organized with 35+ team members. The challenge was to find a Subject Matter Expert (SME) who had the expertise and experience in OMM-TIS and could work across all teams and stakeholders. The corporate management concluded that our company fitted all qualifications to lead the project as SME and Project Manager with a time-line of 8-9 months.
Project Objectives
The project objectives were defined as follows:
- Since the eLearning Portal was specific to the Assets Management Systems (OMM-TIS), it must be both Role based (Planner, operator, Yield accountant) and Task Based (Material movement from various sources to various destinations).
- A WIKI site to offer performance support in terms of manuals, context sensitive help, video, user forums
- Must have Role Overview, A day in the life of Role, Watch it Simulation, Try it Interactive, Quiz, Scenario tests and final course quiz for certification
Our Approach
Usually, the blended learning project uses “Water-fall” methodology for the project management, however decided to use hybrid of water-fall and agile methodologies due to complexity of the project. The project work was divided into two project teams, one for eLearning and other one for WIKI Share-point performance support. Each of these teams were US based with development support from offshore teams and they worked independently. The common link between these two projects and all stakeholders was our company to provide over-all project management, Subject matter Expertise, all reviews and approvals and budget and schedule management. The user community consisted of one lead control engineer from each of six US refineries.
The project methodologies included initial design using storyboard, capturing screen images from the software, developing interactions to it, adding audio-video with captioning, quizzes and final course certifications.
The End Result
The blended eLearning Portal was developed, delivered and accepted by the client management and user community alike. The project evolved an unique method of review and acceptance matrix by our company which streamlined the development and feedback process with full documentation of every step.
Other Related Information
If you would like to read more on the other options of continuing education for the management, control, optimization and reconciliation of the refinery offsite operations, please click here