By Andrew Perks, FSAIRAC
Back in the day, I was involved in drawing up the Safe Handling of Ammonia Manual based on the applicable unit standard.
Let me tell you, it was very time-consuming as there was nothing local to compare it to. I set out to look at what was available overseas and I must say I came across a lot of really good information. But as I progressed, I realised that South Africa is a special place with our own needs and requirements.
Overseas there are technical colleges that offer part-time courses; they have City & Guilds, there is loads of technical material available like EN 378 and ASHRAE – not to mention the new online material coming out of IIAR in America. Currently with the working-from-home philosophy (who would have thought there would be something good to come out of COVID) there are online training courses from refrigeration service providers all over the world, but sadly not all our people have online access.
We need a South African solution. Currently we have SAQCC Gas training for Cat A Plant Operators, Cat B Technicians and Cat C Inspectors/Designers. These are short courses. A Cat A course is typically three days, a Cat B course (including Cat A for the first three days) is five days. Cat C is a more involved course as you must first have a Cat B then spend another five days and undertake a project.
We know this is not enough time for both technical and hands-on training, and as there are no technical colleges providing the training, on-the-job training is our only solution. Sounds great, but who is doing this training? Apprentices are doing most of the larger contracting companies are doing this to a greater or lesser extent, but it’s just not enough. Once the artisan gets their SAQCC Gas Cat B accreditation, they are on their own. So, what do we do about it?
I have pondered on this for many years. It is my passion to pass on knowledge and information to the next generation. Much of what I have learned over many years has been from the hands of a supervisor or highly skilled artisan. The trouble is that they are not here anymore. What do we do? We need to devise a system that works for us.
There are currently two different procedures in place when working on specific tasks with hazardous material plants.
We could look at a RAMS procedure. That is where we first do a risk assessment and based on the risk, draw up a method statement on how we are going to handle the works. This requires a skilled artisan and by virtue of the procedure required, no training is taking place.
Or we could look at Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This differs from the RAMS approach where the risk assessment is first drawn up and then the procedure to deal with it is identified. With SOPs there is a standard procedure identified for the work in question which the artisan familiarises themselves with and then completes a risk assessment for doing the task. The completed risk assessment is presented to the engineer in charge for scrutinising before approval is given to commence with the work.
In essence, the artisan would be taking responsibility for their work after studying the correct way to complete the task. In other words, having gone through a process of self-learning.
We are in the process of developing an SOP manual based on the assumption that the artisan first goes through a training course where the concepts of the SOP are taught along with the risk assessment method to be adopted. In this way, we believe that self-help material can become available to the artisan to add skills and help alleviate our training needs safely.
It’s up to us as an industry to ensure that we are empowering the next generation. If we don’t do it, who will?
Stay safe.