Procedure Services

Procedure Development
and Upgrade Services
AEI's professional procedure writers can help you develop essential plant procedures for operations and maintenance positions for normal, startup, shutdown, and emergency operating conditions. AEI can upgrade existing procedures or develop new procedures for existing or new facilities or equipment. AEI procedures programs address process safety, OSHA, EPA, ISO, DOT, and your corporate requirements. AEI personnel led the way in writing the Center for Chemical Process Safety's Guidelines for Writing Effective Operating and Maintenance Procedures.

Paperless Document Delivery Services
AEI offers a paperless procedure delivery system and interactive electronic forms for use in processing, petrochemical, refinery, pulp & paper, manufacturing, and power generation plants. This approach ensures information is where it needs to be... in the user's hands when needed.

Supervisory/Management Training

Managing to Excel™
— Managerial Competency Training
EXCEL™ is a collection of 12 video-based modules that helps supervisors and managers improve key management competencies. Supervisors and managers can first be assessed by the Managerial Assessment of Proficiency (MAP™) to determine specific developmental needs. This helps participants to objectively identify their needs, dramatically increasing "buy-in" to training.

AEI can offer any or all of the twelve four-hour workshops at your site or you may purchase Excel materials and facilitate their use yourself. An installation of EXCEL includes videotape, instructor guidelines, PowerPoint presentations, and student materials (workbook and handouts) for 25 participants. Additional participant manuals can be purchased separately.

In each workshop, managers view analyses of episodes drawn from MAP that examine typical management interactions. Working interactively with video and workbook, participants identify the basic skills and techniques associated with each competency. They then practice and apply their new learning in a variety of hands-on exercises: role play, case method, script analysis, games/simulations, and self-inventories. Every module ends with individual action plan that participants share with their managers, work team, and other stakeholders. This is the vehicle for transferring learning from workshop to workplace.

Managerial Competencies
Recent studies by a number of major corporations have identified the competencies that highly effective managers and supervisors possess to a greater degree than do average performers. Training House has identified twelve competencies that are common to these studies. We have defined a competency as a "group of related skills, knowledge, and attitudes that correlates with successful functioning in one's job and that can be improved through training". Hence, a competency-based model for training encompasses these elements.

The twelve competencies that comprise Managing to EXCEL are presented in four cluster units:

AEI's skilled facilitators can present the workshops at your site, or you may choose to purchase modules for $1000 each and present them yourself. Contact AEI for more information.

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Customized Worshops

Instructor Skills Workshop
AEI personnel have extensive experience in developing the skills of industrial trainers. Our course has been attended by thousands of new and experienced trainers and managers. Customized versions of this course have been developed for the American Petroleum Institute and the National Industrial Sand Association and numerous clients.

This course is appropriate for any employee whose current job or future advancement can be enhanced by the ability to develop, present, or manage training programs. Onsite presentations are customized to meet current training needs and address today's issues.

Program topics include the following:

• Defining Training Needs
  • Characteristics of Adult Learners
  • Applicable Government & Industry Training Requirements
• Analysis and Design
  • Instructional System Design Model
  • Job and Task Analysis
  • Terminal and Enabling Objectives
  • Curriculum Design
• Training Material Development and Selection
  • Lesson Plans
  • Selecting Consultants and Off-the-Shelf Materials
    to Enhance Your Program
  • Developing Your Program Schedule
• Test Construction
  • Objective And Subjective Test Items
  • Test Validity, Reliability And Efficiency
  • Guidelines For Writing Test Questions
• Presentation Skills
  • Presentation Guidelines
  • Types of Training Delivery
  • Questioning Techniques
  • Training Aids
• Evaluating Training and Measuring ROI
  • Evaluating Your Program and Using Feedback
  • Cost Benefit Analysis
  • Organizational Commitment 

AEI can alter the emphasis on each topic as desired to help ensure optimum use of training time. This course can be offered in three versions:

Procedure Writing Techniques Workshop
This is a two day workshop that focuses on developing procedures that are accurate and easy to use. The course content is based upon the book written by Mr. Robert Walter and Ms. Sandra Baker for the AIChE Center for Chemical Process Safety, Guidelines for Writing Effective Operations and Maintenance Procedures. It will be customized based upon the needs of your team Participants will learn to develop high-quality procedures to meet your corporate requirements as well as the requirements of current industry drivers such as:

• Process Safety Management,
• EPA Risk Management Program Rule, and
• ISO Quality and Environmental Management System Standards.

This workshop is helpful for anyone developing new procedures or for those who need to upgrade existing procedures. Supervisors, engineers, and managers will also gain an understanding of how to design a procedure system that encourages employee participation. This workshop is essential for any company building an internal procedure writing team. Site-specific examples will be used throughout the workshop.

Attendees will be able to research and develop procedures for specific process tasks to meet site guidelines, process safety concerns, and quality needs. The procedures developed by attendees will show good technical writing skills and human factors considerations.

Program topics include the following:

• Course Introduction and Overview
  Sets the stage for the course, presents the objectives, and describes how to use the concepts presented.
• Important Process Safety, Environmental and Quality System Procedure Considerations
  Compares and contrasts the primary procedure requirements that chemical processing plants must meet to stay competitive.
• How to Design a Procedure Management System
  Describes the purposes of procedures and the different categories of procedures you should consider. It also gives advice on how to build a total procedure program.
• Writing Operating and Maintenance Procedures
  Addresses the topics of format, the types of references and resources needed, human factors aspects of the procedures, how to begin writing, how to address technical data, and special considerations for maintenance procedures, batch processes and for revising existing procedures
• Guidelines for Effective Procedures
  Provides basic rules (with examples) that users can select from to set their own standards for consistent plant procedures. Administrative, technical and human factors aspects are summarized in some very simple rules.
• Special Considerations for Emergency Procedures
  Discusses what could be considered the most important procedures in your plant. How to identify your emergency operating procedures, special human factors concerns, how to use emergency operating procedures and how to tie them into your emergency response plan are all addressed.
• Document Control for Procedures
  Details the basic requirements to ensure procedures are accessible, controlled, and well maintained. It discusses the wide range of choices you have in selecting the level of control your process needs and you can realistically maintain.
• Procedure Development Costs and Benefits
  Describes the basics for planning procedure development and revision projects and some typical benefits that companies have experienced by developing and using effective procedures.

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Training Services

AEI helps you build performance-based training programs with an emphasis on workplace results. Using a systematic approach, AEI assists in the analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of training programs that address process safety, OSHA, EPA, ISO, DOT, and your corporate requirements. AEI personnel have experience in developing overview and job-specific training for operations, maintenance, supervisory, and administrative personnel.

Typical projects include:

• Training Needs Assessments
• Job and Task Analysis
• Curriculum Development
• Objectives, Lesson Plans, Exams, Student Manuals
• System Descriptions with Drawings
• Equipment Operations Manuals
• On-the-Job Training and Qualification Guides
• Customized Computer Based Training (CBT)
• Training Audits and Evaluations
• Customized Technical Workshops
• Workshops for Trainers and Procedure Writers
• Competency Training Workshops for Managers/Supervisors