156
World Pipelines
/
AUGUST 2015
In-house training programme
An in-house training programme is effective but can also be
very costly and time consuming. The advantage of creating
your own in-house course is that it will reflect your company’s
culture and way of doing business. The key is getting the
right people together to build and implement a training
programme. Building a training course is not something that
should be left up to the company’s safety department to
create in isolation; it needs to involve experienced operators,
equipment managers and mechanics to ensure the programme
reflects real world operations.
So, what should be included in your training course?
Start with the legislated requirements in your jurisdiction
or the jurisdictions in which you operate, always default
to the highest standard. By doing so, you are always
compliant.Next, look to any consensus standards relating
to pipeline equipment
operation, such as the
American Society of
Mechanical Engineers
Standard ASME B30.14 Side
Boom Tractors. This standard
is full of information on side
boom operations including
qualifications for operators
and inspection requirements.
Client requirements are
also a good source of
information. Many large
pipeline operators have
specific procedures or
standard operating practices
that they expect equipment
operators to know and
follow while working on
their spreads, which will add
value to your training. Most
health and safety legislation
requires that equipment be
operated in accordance with
manufacturer’s recommendations contained within the
machine’s manual; including the manufacturer’s instructions
in your training programme is a must. Lastly, your
training needs to be include your company’s policies and
expectations on how machine operators use and care for
your equipment. Once you have developed your training
programme you then have a standard to evaluate machine
operators against in order to deem them competent. As
with every training programme, there needs to a practical
component that allows the machine operators to take
the knowledge they gained from classroom education and
apply it in the field in a controlled environment under the
watchful eye of an experienced operator.
Deeming competency
The age old question; who is qualified to deem pipeline
equipment operators competent? This is one of those chicken
and the egg scenarios. Remember that someone had to be
the examiner for the first drivers test. Safety regulators often
define a qualified person as someone who is knowledgeable in
their area of work, the hazards involved, and the methods to
control those hazards. Once you have developed your training
programme using regulatory requirements, industry standards,
best practices and machine manufacturer’s instructions for
the safe use of the equipment, you have pretty much covered
those bases. This is where having experienced operators
involved in developing your training really pays off. Having
your experienced operators demonstrate the competencies
that they helped develop as part of the training programme
allows you to ‘test drive’ your programme to ensure you
have it right. Then the operators who helped develop the
programme act as your evaluators to assess the rest of your
machine operators.
Figure 3.
Pipeline operations are often within a machine’s
safety zone.
Figure 2.
Ensure the operator sees you before entering the safety zone.
