PMAOPS505 Control the process during abnormal situations

Release: 1

PMAOPS505 Control the process during abnormal situations

Modification History

Release 1. Supersedes and is equivalent to PMAOPS505A Control the process during abnormal situations

Application

This unit of competency covers the skills and knowledge required to control a process during abnormal or declared incident situations to prevent or avoid an emergency and restore the plant/process to a stable condition.

This unit of competency applies to senior technicians or those in similar roles who are required to apply in-depth knowledge of process and plant operations and problem solving in order to clarify the situation, prioritise the responses and actions, organise and direct the operations team, review the situation and respond to any changes, and communicate with all relevant stakeholders.

This person may, or may not be ‘hands on’ with the control panel during this abnormal situation, but will take control and direct the response to the abnormal situation. The person will often be a shift supervisor or similar.

No licensing, legislative or certification requirements apply to this unit at the time of publication.

Pre-requisite Unit

Nil

Competency Field

Operations

Unit Sector

Elements and Performance Criteria

Elements describe the essential outcomes.	Performance criteria describe the performance needed to demonstrate achievement of the element.
1	Identify the abnormal situation	1.1	Identify the state of the plant/process
1.2	Gather available information on the plant/process with particular focus on trends and rates of change
1.3	Verify and confirm situation with other technicians in the area and any upstream or downstream units
2	Respond appropriately	2.1	Apply immediate actions to respond to the abnormal situation to bring the plant/process to a safer state
2.2	Decide whether to continue operations, shutdown or abandon
2.3	Keep in contact with other technicians in the area
3	Review and respond to changes	3.1	Review the situation, gather data on the state of the plant/process and the trends and rates of change
3.2	Make changes to the state of the plant/process to keep parameters within limits
3.3	Rectify or initiate procedures to rectify any faults or adjustments to secure the safe operation of the plant/process
3.4	Review the state of the recovery, making adjustments as required
3.5	Keep all other stakeholders informed of progress
3.6	When plant is restored to stable conditions, continue to monitor the situation
4	Document abnormal situation and response	4.1	Complete all logs and workplace documentation relating to the abnormal situation, ensuring all details, actions and responses are accurately recorded
4.2	Record any further ongoing production problems and report to appropriate persons or authority

Foundation Skills

This section describes those language, literacy, numeracy and employment skills that are essential to performance.

Foundation skills essential to performance are explicit in the performance criteria of this unit of competency.

Range of Conditions

This field allows for different work environments and conditions that may affect performance. Essential operating conditions that may be present (depending on the work situation, needs of the candidate, accessibility of the item, and local industry and regional contexts) are included.
Regulatory framework	The latest version of all legislation, regulations, industry codes of practice and Australian/international standards, or the version specified by the local regulatory authority, must be used, and include one or more of the following: legislative requirements, including work health and safety (WHS) industry codes of practice and guidelines environmental regulations and guidelines Australian and other standards licence and certification requirements All operations to which this unit applies are subject to stringent health, safety and environment (HSE) requirements, which may be imposed through state/territory or federal legislation, and these must not be compromised at any time. Where there is an apparent conflict between performance criteria and HSE requirements, the HSE requirements take precedence.
Hazards	Hazards include one or more of the following: electricity gas clouds gases and liquids under pressure structural hazards structural collapse equipment failures industrial (machinery, equipment and product) equipment or product mass noise, rotational equipment or vibration plant services (steam, condensate and cooling water) working at heights, in restricted or confined spaces, or in environments subjected to smoke, darkness, heat, dust, vapours or other atmospheric hazards fire and explosion flammability and explosivity hazardous products and materials unauthorised personnel sharp edges, protrusions or obstructions slippery surfaces, spills or leaks extreme weather other hazards that might arise
Procedures	All operations must be performed in accordance with relevant procedures. Procedures are written, verbal, visual, computer-based or in some other form, include one or more of the following: emergency procedures work instructions standard operating procedures (SOPs) safe work method statements (SWMS) formulas/recipes batch sheets temporary instructions any similar instructions provided for the smooth running of the plant

Unit Mapping Information

Release 1. Supersedes and is equivalent to PMAOPS505A Control the process during abnormal situations

Links

Companion Volume implementation guides are found in VETNet - https://vetnet.gov.au/Pages/TrainingDocs.aspx?q=9fc2cf53-e570-4e9f-ad6a-b228ffdb6875