Inprocess Training for Operators solution (ITOP) implemented in ECOPETROL

After months without having the opportunity to lecture a live course, last 8^th to 11^th March, Manel Serra delivered a practical unit operations course, at Ecopetrol facilities in Barrancabermeja refinery, using ITOP, for up to twenty one control room and field operators who attended the sessions from that same refinery, and from the one located in Cartagena de Indias.

Along the four days, the operators were capable of practicing, in the risk-free environment that the virtual unit operations of ITOP provide, how do function the different equipment that they are used to operate in their daily tasks. Thanks to ITOP and to Manel, they ended up understanding deeply heat transfer, fluid motion, mass separation and other fundamentals of process and chemical engineering. Using ITOP, operators do not only watch and listen to an instructor but they really get involved in the learning process by actively working with the virtual exercises.

This was the first of a series of ITOP courses that Inprocess instructors will be delivering in the following months to the rest of Ecopetrol operators, in close collaboration with professors from Universidad Industrial de Santander. Certifying their operators using ITOP as training tool, Ecopetrol has entered into the digital era of operators training, ensuring their staff possesses the appropriate set of skills and know-how to properly execute their job tasks and duties.