A key to optimal facilities operational performance is to have highly skilled personnel who function effectively in any given situation during the day-to-day operation of the units. In the past, operations personnel have only been able to develop these skills from experience. This experience is acquired by encountering upset and emergency conditions, resolving them and then re-applying these solutions in the future. The dilemma facing the plant management team is that in order to gain experienced operations personnel in that manner, the units must experience some of the same costly problems that they are trying to avoid.