TRAINING
... and virtual reality simulations for student practice.
Columbus McKinnon is another manufacturer to have established training centres across the globe. Their UK facility is in Chester. Classroom sessions with instructors is their preferred method. They have, for example, one-day sessions on using their Camlock lifting clamps; their ‘hand chain hoists and ratchet lever hoists’ course is aimed at service engineers who must maintain them; and the ‘ST Electric chain hoists’ course is a hands-on session covering inspection, fault-finding, repair and installation. For Ross Maloney, CEO of LEEA, he and his organisation assess dozens, if not hundreds, of such training courses – and run them too. “I don’t think that as an organisation we have a view on whether digital or online or face-to-face is better,” he says. “All have their place.” It is horses for courses. What is key, he says, is to keep sight of the aim of the exercise: “What, after all, is the actual point of training people? It is to keep them safe. “And in a changing world, the things you need to know in order to stay safe keep changing. An advantage that LEEA has is that we are global. Our training isn’t written by two or three guys that we know; we have more than a thousand members in around 70 countries working in about 30 different supply chains, and all of them active in the industry and knowing what conditions around them are like. They feed back to us and tell us what is changing: regulations or technology or working
conditions; and because we are not for profit, and are therefore flexible, we can respond to that very quickly. We can make changes to the curriculum every three months if we need to.” Theory is one thing: theory does not change from task
to task. Reality, he says, is different: it varies. “An offshore lifting project in the North Sea is very different in practice from the same project off Saudi Arabia.” The two tasks might get done in two quite different ways. A worker used to one environment might struggle in the other. “It comes down to this: how are we going to get that person competent in that job?” says Maloney. “Because training is not about getting a certificate at the end of a course. It is not about ticking boxes about the modules you have done. It is not about having another bit of paper to throw into your folder. It is about making you better at your job. And that means more efficient; and above all it means safer.”
Learning for life Whether that is achieved through face-to-face instruction or through online instruction, in a classroom or by a video-call, or by sitting in a real crane cab with an experienced teacher at your shoulder, is not really the point. “Learners learn in different ways,” says Maloney. “What is good for one may not be good for another. So,
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