Writing Effective Operating and Maintenance Procedures (Course 5) Training

This course teaches how to write effective step-by-step operating procedures and how to develop troubleshooting guides from PHA documentation. This is very much a "How To" course, designed to teach skills. The first day of the course is for both operations and maintenance personnel; the second day is mainly for operators (since they typically must write more in-depth troubleshooting guides).

Typical Course Candidates

Senior Operations and Maintenance Technicians are the primary targets of this course, since they should write their procedures and take ownership of them (maintenance technicians need only to attend the first day)
Engineers – Process, Safety, and Mechanical
PSM and Quality Compliance Auditors

What You Will Learn

Learn where/when written procedures are required
Learn the human factors that pertain to procedures
How to avoid common procedural errors that can reduce safety and quality, leading to incidents
How to develop thorough and accurate content
How to choose the best page layout/format for the goal of each procedure
Learn 26 rules to help you write every step-by-step procedure effectively
How to assess current procedures for addressing best practice rules
- This will be done in class, so you will need to provide us procedures ahead of time.
How to address operating limits and process deviations
How to develop troubleshooting guides
How to comply with regulatory requirements and quality control requirements for procedures

Take Home:

Comprehensive course notebook containing:
Examples of acceptable procedural formats
- Checklists for identifying missing procedures, gathering procedure
information, formatting procedures, and writing step-by-step instructions
- Completed workshops from class exercises, including typical solutions for
each
Electronic (PDF) copy of course notebook
Certificate of Completion
1.3 CEUs & 1.3 COCs

Course Outline

Day 1 (8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.)

What is an effective procedure?
- Goals, general concepts, definitions
- Overview of process for developing procedures
- Procedure requirements: industry standards for quality and regulations for
safety
- Introductory Workshop: Writing effective instructions for a simple task
(shows ahead of time why effective procedure writing rules are critical)
Formatting the procedures
- Step-by-step formats
- Use of white space
- Step numbering
- Document control features — headers and footers
- Introductory items — procedure titles, sections, and section titles
- Use of graphics/figures
- Review of Formatting rules and why each is important
Writing step-by-step instructions
- Rules for writing the most effective instructions
- Using command; keeping it simple; being consistent; being precise; use of
references
- Workshop: Improving a poor step-by-step procedure
Addressing Operating limits and deviations
- Defining “operating limits,” “deviations,” and more
- Identifying deviations that may occur, including errors of omission and
errors of commission (for step-by-step procedures)
- Defining procedural boundaries using conditional statements, warnings, and
cautions (for step-by-step procedures)

Day 2 (8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.)

Addressing Operating limits and deviations (for continuous mode of operation)
- Listing the triggers for process parameters where action is required
- Identifying the worst case and more likely consequences
- Developing troubleshooting steps (diagnosis steps, steps to prevent
excursions, steps to correct excursions)
- Workshop: Developing a troubleshooting guide for continuous
operating mode
Deciding what procedures are needed
Gathering information for a procedure
- When/why the procedure will be performed
- Main steps, substeps, details, hazards, precautions
- Workshop: Creating a procedure from basic information
Verifying, validating, and certifying procedures
Overview of managing changes to procedures
Overview of risk review of procedures
Optional Exam

More Information

Instructor:

Bill Bridges will be the instructor for this course. He has trained over 1000 procedure writers during the past 20 years of teaching this topic. And he has written many thousands of pages of both operating procedures and maintenance procedures. He co-authored the definitive paper on developing troubleshooting guides in 1995. To find our more about this course or to check into having this course taught at your site; contact Mr. Bridges at 1.865.675.3458 or by e-mail at wbridges@p-i-i-i.com.

Schedule:

>> See the Calendar of Publicly Offered Training.

This course can also be taught (either as-is or customized) at your site. Please contact PII for details about having our training provided at your site.

Pricing for Public Offerings (per student):

$795.00 USD

Registration Information:

>> Click here to register for this course.