Here's an excerpt from my colleauge Ray Johnson that is posted on our Optimization Blog :
With nearly half of its workforce approaching retirement, power plants are about to lose people who possess critical plant knowledge. For power generators to prevail during a mass exodus of skilled employees, it won’t be just a matter of finding and hiring replacements. This massive retirement wave presents a need to rethink and redesign the way power plants operate.
Knowledge capture is critical
Capturing the knowledge of experienced employees is critical for power plants to prevent processes, practices, and other valuable information from walking out the door. Optimization is one way that plants are capturing – and applying – knowledge from experienced plant staff.
At NeuCo, we’re able to build knowledge from plant staff into the optimizers. In this way, the optimizers are continuously applying years of cumulative knowledge and experience from multiple plant experts. To effectively and efficiently capture this knowledge, we use a variety of technologies to model the plant. The complete job can not be done using just one modeling technology.
Changing the way power generators do business
Many plants are tilting their business models by shifting to distributed knowledge – moving outside of plant confines and working with external resources. For example, NeuCo is currently working with Black & Veatch to develop a solution that brings intelligent technologies together with best-in-class diagnostic process management and human expertise.
I’ve recently been asking some of my industry contacts their views on the impending retirement wave. I was struck by how this is already a very real issue – from the on-the-ground and in-the-trenches power plant staff, to upper management and industry consultants.
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