VRcontext International was recently awarded a milestone contract with TOTAL E&P Angola to deliver a 3D “Immersive Training Simulator” (ITS) for the Pazflor FPSO, to be anchored on one of TOTAL’s largest offshore producing assets.
Walkinside allowed the TOTAL Training Room Instructors to create customized collaborative scenarios that were later used to develop improved communication skills of the trainees and to test their execution performance.
Walkinside ITS’ Scenario Editor helped TOTAL E&P Angola simulate real-life workflow situations using different training mode options, with diverse immersive scenarios specifically designed for the planning, the scheduling and the execution of Standard Operating Procedures. The implementation of these scenarios can be timed and stored for subsequent operators’ assessment, improvement tracking and playback for refresher courses or novice training, making learning more effective, fun and easy!
“The objective for the Field Operators was to associate the Tags of equipment, instruments such as pressure gauges, valves, safety valves on one hand and piping lay out and the main machines such as pumps on the other hand, with their location on site for various scenarios including HSE (Health, Safety Environmental) procedures, Black Start procedures and Routine operations,” said Lionel Ramat from the Field Operations group of the Pazflor project for TOTAL E&P Angola.
He added: “Even though it is still early to quantify the return on investment, the ease of the takeover by the trainees and their feedback were very positive. Also the value of the ITS, as a contextual training environment, was confirmed by experienced operational personnel.”
Thanks to the Walkinside ITS, TOTAL can now rely on faithful, photo-realistic 3D representations of its new producing assets for the training of all field personnel. The 3D Virtual Reality models can be automatically created from the existing 3D Engineering CAD drawings using the smart Walkinside converter capabilities. The 3D models are subsequently enhanced to include interactive items that can be manually operated during the training sessions, such as valves, pumps, fire-extinguishers, etc. Trainees are therefore able to use these live-action items in training scenarios.
This breakthrough technology helps accelerate both safe start-up operation and time to first oil of all new important assets, significantly improving Return on Investment for major capital projects.
[mappress] Source:VRcontext , July 1, 2011;