Paul

The process you describe appears to be an excellent way of developing an initial training and assessment package for new maintenance technicians. One of its key features is that it provides a clear link between process safety risks and 'soft' controls. However, I do not think it addresses all of the key requirements of a competence assurance system.

I would suggest that your main challenge is demonstrating competence assurance of existing personnel on am on-going basis. Just because someone went through your described process originally does not mean they remain competent for ever more. Things change, people forget and pick up bad habits. Also, you will find that some of your most critical tasks are performed infrequently and your process as it stands may not be enough for people to ever become competent.

As a minimum, you need to consider the need for re-assessment for the most safety critical tasks. This will need to address the tasks performed frequently (so it is actually easy to arrange an observation) and those performed infrequently. In some cases you may actually have to run a simulated training and assessment program in advance of an infrequent task being performed, and this needs to be factored into the job planning process.

Other safety critical competencies need to be covered. As a minimum these would include knowledge of your permit-to-work and management of change systems; and diagnosis skills. Also, I would suggest an area that maintenance personnel are often very weak at is understanding process isolations (they tend to assume equipment has been isolated properly without checking). Also, you need to recognise that some of your most critical tasks may be performed by contractors, but you will still have some responsibility for ensuring their competence.

I will say at this point that everything I have said is theory. As a consultant I am very experienced in applying safety critical task analysis. However, despite many attempts to get my clients to take this through to competence assurance I have not managed to get any to do it (yet). A few have said that they are going to do it 'in-house' but every attempt I have seen so far has become a bureaucratic tick-box exercise that has added little or no value.

Good luck with this. If you get it right I am sure it will reap massive benefits.

I did this some time ago on a higher tier COMAH site. I worked with a local college and used the City and Guilds "Profile of Achievment" in which 6-7 items are picked to build a portfolio for the individual. For example for a mechy fitter 1 of these was having their original apprenticeship. Another was training in the PTW system. However, the hub of it was for the tradesperson to do specific tasks "by the book" ie following the SOP and Risk Asessment, this was witnessed by someone else eg Engineer / Team leader and this built up a portfolio of tasks. We used the COMAH report to ID safety critical items eg pumps and used the maintenance of this kit as examples. The completed portfolio was audited by the college and eventually led to the profile of achievment. This was accepted by the Competent Authority. http://www.cityandguilds...1-profile-of-achievement

The task actually requires that we need some form of CPD in process for all competent persons. Most of what is being said here revolves around a one off achievement that mere audits are not going to fully warrant as an operational competence system. Competence can only be maintained by ongoing development - it is NOT a static one off matter. In truth the individuals concerned should be able to modify processes and procedures as the task unfurls during work, look at the Electrical competence needs under IEE regs - Here people inspect and certify the work they haave done.

You should therefore be looking at how you can assist these persons to maintain and develop there skills with appropriate records to demonstrate their ongoing development. Monitoring on a routine ad hoc basis then becomes a further essential task to demonstrate ongoing compliance and competence.

Bob