What staff and training are required to safely operate a PSA plant?

For staff qualifications, first determine if the staff is expected to simply operate the plant or if the staff is also expected to provide maintenance-service for the plant.

If the staff is expected to simply operate the plant, then the minimum qualification of the should be 1 staff that is a certified/qualified electrical, mechanical, or biomedical technician, plus if cylinders are to be filled, then add staff of 1 or 2 basic laborers to handle cylinders (the number of added laborers needed will depends on the number of cylinders to manage).

If the staff is expected to perform basic and/or advanced maintenance/service to the PSA plant then a certified electrical, mechanical, or biomedical engineer should be added to the staff.

The total number of staff to be hired should be based on the plan of operational hours of the plant.  For example, a PSA plant is typically planned to operate for 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, therefore the total number of staff to be hired should be planned accordingly.

Initial Basic Training for PSA plant technicians and engineers is recommended to begin at the time of plant installation and commissioning by the manufacturer’s installation team.  The manufacture should provide complete instruction regarding how to operate the plant, monitor, understand and record the proper performance parameters of the plant, instruction of simple and routine maintenance for the plant according to manufacturer’s specification, basic trouble-shooting, and standard operating procedures for acquiring support for service and maintenance when needed.

Advanced levels of service should only be performed by competent trained engineers and technicians, and this usually means that an “outside” service contract will be required to provide the advance levels of service that will be needed.  Overall, the availability of advanced level training for PSA services is scarce and will require the PSA owner to prioritize and finance efforts to locate training opportunities to increase the knowledge, skill and abilities of their own technicians and engineers.

FAQ by Assist International