SPONSORS OF COMPETENCY TRAINING FEATURE
IN SUPPORT OF COMPETENCY TRAINING FOR MECHANICAL PERSONNEL
It has been said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. Yet in an industry where geometric growth and relentless technological innovation are the norm, there has been little time to develop a reliable and useful “institutional memory”.
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SO MUCH MORE! – THE DOING AS WELL AS THE KNOWLEDGE Competency training requires more than exposure to abstract knowledge tested through written examinations or rote memorisation of procedures. Competence is the ability to successfully apply knowledge and to demonstrate one’s capabilities by doing, not just knowing. Moreover it implies performance to meet a generally accepted standard. We take for granted that a welder must be certified before he is allowed to lay a bead. The same is true of electricians, crane operators and even the drivers of heavy goods vehicles who deliver to our sites. But for many of the crafts no clear performance standards have been set and little or no formal instruction is required.
PROVEN EXAMPLE One example is the skill of bolted joint assembly. There are nearly a thousand critical bolts in the average wind tower and turbine, the failure of any one of which could potentially cascade into a catastrophic system failure. Great efforts are made to check and recheck the tightness of bolted joints at pre-determined
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the human factors area where often the most senior mechanical installation personnel may have less than a year’s on-the-job experience and may be faced with assembling new turbine models with almost every installation. To address this experience gap the wind industry must invest in effective competency training programmes for craftspeople which transfer accumulated experience, impart new knowledge and set a standard for safety and performance.
intervals at great expense in time and money, yet little or no attention has been given to pre-qualification of bolting personnel and procedures to avoid the loosening of critical joints in the first place.
LEARNING FROM OTHERS Other industries have begun to take up this challenge. The bolting of pressure vessels common to power plants, pipelines and oil and chemical refineries is now done subject to strict “best practices” guidelines such as those published by ASME and by CEN (the European Committee on Standardisation) both of which are in the process of issuing training and testing standards personnel
involved in bolting pressure joints. In the structural bolting field clear guidelines and procedures govern every aspect of joint assembly in bridges and buildings but no clear standards have been set and no specific curricula has been adopted by the wind industry.
SPECIFIC WORKFORCE REQUIREMENTS
Most of the incoming mechanical workers who will be needed to staff the continued growth of the wind power will have to come from trade and technical school programmes specifically targeted to the skills necessary in the wind industry.
An example of such a programme is the one recently inaugurated by NETA Training Group at their Stockton on Tees location. The programme manager, Mr. Norman Falwell, describes his course as “a preparation for real world problems based on both theoretical and practical instruction”. Similar purpose-built programmes are being presented in Ireland at Letterkenny and in the U.S. at a number of community colleges and trade schools with semester-long training courses focused specifically to qualifying workers for the wind industry.
COLLABORATION AND DEVELOPMENT We applaud these efforts and urge manufacturers, erection and maintenance contractors and the academic community to collaborate and develop workable education and qualification standards to ensure the future safety and security of the wind industry and to make sure that the lessons so dearly learned are not lost or left to be learned again by each new generation.
David Lay Hytorc
www.hytorc.com
e = See enhanced entry online
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www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
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