I sort of got my come-uppance during IFSEC week. For months now I have been bleating on about the lack of training within our industry and how nobody cares. You may have read it and thought yet another load of Michael’s blatherings on the wrongs of our industry.
Well, during the exhibition I was forced to change my tune a little when I was asked to join a mixed team from SSAIB, NACOSS and SITO to adjudicate at the Apprentice Skills Challenge. I know it was running last year but because I had other things on my agenda I managed to miss it. So this was the first evidence I have seen other than some NVQ assessment I have been doing that there is any formal training actually being done.
I hear and read a lot about training co-operatives and training initiatives and this scheme and that scheme but I still talk to a lot of installers who are having difficulty in finding and funding such training for their apprentices so I still believe there is much to be done on that front.
Putting availability of training and industry politics aside, I have to state that the skills quality of the lads involved impressed me no end. They all had a good grasp of the essentials of the installation and, apart from a small problem with some of them trying to get their heads round the programming of a control panel they had not seen before, they all made a very good show indeed.
For those who missed it I can well recommend a look in at next years competition but please – could we restrain ourselves from offering advice at the tops of our voices, or giving vent to our sense of humour at their expense, or, as I saw in one case a boss glaring at his lad as if to say “Let me down and your dead”.
Goldfish bowl experience
There is no doubt that the apprentices were feeling the pressure of the competition which was amplified by the “goldfish bowl” effect of having to perform in front of a live audience and a few silly mistakes were made because of it but these were soon picked up and corrected. At this stage I have to ask – how many of the experienced installers out there would have had the guts to get up and work in front of an exhibition crowd? Not many, I’ll bet.
Basically the competition was to install a working alarm system in the booth provided, the system comprised of a control panel and RedCare communicator (ready mounted on the wall), a remote keypad, door contact, and a movement detector. There was also the option of an extra Vibration detector on the window and a roller shutter contact if the lads felt they had the time to add them in. There were three lengths of plastic trunking supplied and more if they needed it, plus wire, clips and virtually everything they needed including battery drills. The whole lot had to be done in two hours flat, not an easy task but more than one team got there.
Now, where did most of them go wrong, (and this is not to be taken in any way as criticism of their knowledge or skills)?
Organisation! That’s where, the same as in any “real” job.
Borne in a trunk
Planning: It is essential to read the instructions and the spec and then get together and lay out a plan of action. Decide how much time you can afford to spend on each section of the work and try not to go over time. Many points were lost by not even starting some sections because too much time was lost elsewhere. The big time loser was fitting the trunking; many teams spent a whole hour getting all the trunking up. We witnessed some shining examples of complicated cornering only to find that they didn’t have time to finish the course. Here the lads have to be cruel with their own talents, if they spend more than half an hour getting the trunking up then they have put themselves at a very real disadvantage. In real life we learn to do the job right even if it takes a little more time, but on a competition job like this it is better to lose a few points by finding the quick and easy option so that you can gain fifteen or twenty points on another section that you may not have even started if you waste too much time on one particular task.
Working together: It is absolutely vital that the lads work as a team and not two individuals. There were some excellent instances of lads working as a team but others looked a little “lost” and not at all sure of what to do next. It needs to be decided at the outset who will be the team leader and who will do what jobs and what order you will do them in. Another point, if you see your team-mate struggling help him out, it may only take a few seconds of your time and save him vital minutes
Going equipped: carrying the right tools for the job will save vital minutes. Let me explain more! Although tools were provided, many of the lads preferred to use their own and this was in fact encouraged and here is where much useful time was saved. First, you always work better with tools you are familiar with. Second, here is an opportunity to carry some specialist stuff that can save a lot of time. At least two teams had brought their own trunking cutters (a brilliant piece of kit I have not seen before that saves untold time cutting and mitering corners on the old bog standard trunking).
Fishing: For the non-installing reader, this is a method of dropping wires down a cavity in a wall and then trying to catch (or fish for) them through a pre-drilled hole in the wall, sometimes using a loop of wire, more often it is the old straightened out coat hanger with a hook bent on the end. The end result is a keypad or some other device placed in the middle of a wall without a hint of wire show-ing. A very professional method and a lot of the better companies use the technique to great effect.
Unfortunately many of the lads wasted a lot of time trying to fish wires down the cavity only to give up and revert to the trunking. This is not the way to do it; before you decide on fishing the wires a short investigation and the right tools are called for. A good small torch is essential for looking down the cavity, this can also be used to shine a light into the cavity through the hole you have drilled in the wall, then, if you can see the light from the top of the cavity wall you know there is a way through possibly without obstruction and the decision can be made to adopt the fishing method instead of the sometimes unsightly and time consuming trunking down the middle of the wall.
The main reason for not succeeding with the fishing method was the fact that the lads were dropping the coil of wire down the wall and then not being able to find the end of the wire through the hole in the wall. Perhaps if they tackled it from the other end they may have more success. First use the torch to establish that there is a way through. Then, if you are fitting something like a keypad, you can cheat a little by drilling a hole about 1inch in diameter (the keypad will cover the hole and no-one is any the wiser). Better still, instead of drilling the hole at right angles to the wall why not drill upwards at about 45 degrees. It makes life easier. Next you need a length of the smallest (narrowest) trunking, remove the lid and feed the lid up through the cavity until it pops out at the top, then you tape your wire to the trunking lid and pull gently back down. It’s an old trick but it works a treat and would have saved the lads a lot of valuable time.
Another tip at this point is to arm yourself with a wad of fine welding rods (not the ones with the flux coating … use the plain ones). These have the advantage of already being straight so you don’t have to waste time straightening out the old coat hangers. They are also much finer and, provided you buy the good quality ones, they can be bent double at the end without breaking them. They can also, even when bent double, pass easily through a 5mm hole (small enough just to take the wire), this is particularly helpful when trying to fish wires down the inside of an aluminium shop front, (don’t forget to smooth the edges of the hole to avoid damage to the wire if the hole is too small for a grommet).
And, would you believe it, here comes the old welding rod again to smooth the hole – take a 2 inch square of emery paper, fold it double (rough side out), cut a 4 inch length of fine welding rod and fold it double 1inch from the end trapping the emery paper in the fold, it should look like a butterfly when finished, or a very small version of the “Angel of the North” (You remember, that great big statue that dominates the skyline as you approach Newcastle.) This can now be used in your battery drill to make a very effective “flap wheel” to smooth out the hole. (With great apologies to the people of Newcastle I can never look at that statue without thinking of a “flasher”)
Not much tacking
Coming back to the competition, the good old cable tacker that we all use day to day never came out because most of the lads I spoke to afterwards thought that they weren’t allowed to use one. As far as I know there was no restriction on their usage but the main thing is don’t assume anything, ask at the pre-briefing. Using the tacker gun will not gain you any points but it will not lose you points provided it is done neatly and in accordance with BS4737, on the other hand it could gain a lot of time to earn points elsewhere.
Also whilst we are on the subject of asking questions, don’t be afraid to speak out if you spot something you are not happy with, for example – when it came to asking for a fuse to power up, everyone was offered a 13amp fuse. The idea was to test if the lads were in the habit of checking the size of the fuse in the spur before powering up. A surprising number of them just accepted it without question, even though when asked about it afterwards everyone knew the fuse should be 3amp.
I would also like to take this opportunity to offer a word of congratulation to my fellow adjudicators and the organisers, right to the very smallest point they were scrupulously fair, they were very helpful and bent over backwards to make the contestants feel at ease, all in all you couldn’t have asked for a better bunch. All it needs now is for more people to get into the training co-operatives or the local colleges and for more young lads to put themselves forward for the competition.
One small point did concern me though:There was talk about what would happen if the competition pulled in too many entries, and the first answer that came up was that we may have to have a written test to reduce the number of entries.
Before that decision is made, finally let me tell you a story.
Driving force’ ruled out
During my Fire Brigade days we had a National Fire Engine Driver of the Year competition. The entry each year was colossal so the numbers were reduced by a written exam before the driving started. At our station we had a driver who could park his machine on the old tanner going backwards in the dark with a blindfold on. Out on the road he was even better, his driving was faultless. He was that good, we were convinced that he would walk away with the national title. The only problem was someone else beat him in the written exam so he was eliminated.
Come the day of the competition, a very tight manoeuvrability course was set out with cones in the drill yard at HQ. Each driver in turn had to drive round the course and park on a predetermined spot at the end, some good efforts were made but no one was perfect.
The irony was that our own failed candidate was given the job of repositioning the fire engine at the end of each run for the next contestant – which he did by reversing the machine back over the course and parking exactly on the four marks provided on the floor. He did this every time as faultlessly as usual, using only his mirrors. Eventually this trick was spotted by the Assistant Chief who was adjudicating; he then asked why this man (who could do the course backwards better that the others were doing it forwards) had not entered the competition. After he had been enlightened he treated us to the longest, most proficient, most eloquent string of swearwords I have never heard and his description of the person who thought up the elimination exam certainly conjured up some colourful pictures.
With that in mind I would strongly request the organisers to re-think and make the eliminator a practical one, after all paper knowledge and practical skill don’t always come hand in hand.
Time to be ‘re-potted’
Someone once said to me “every so often in life there comes a time when you have to re-pot yourself”. It’s like a plant that outgrows its pot and has to have a new one to enjoy a new lease of life. That s the situation in which I have found myself in recent months. Over the last ten years I have put a lot of time and effort into helping the SSAIB to get up and running as an organisation to be reckoned with. Now, I am proud to say that it has become an accepted and respected organisation with a wide membership – a far cry from the mere 100 or so who decided to start the old SSA so many years ago.
Now I find that I am on a merry-go-round of inspections and more and more restricted in what I can say and do to help the installers. I must point out that this is not the fault of the SSAIB and it’s man- agement, it is the world in which we are now living.
The SSAIB, quite rightly, has adapted to the situation by refining itself from a trade organisation into a pure inspectorate, with the accent far more on helping the industry to regulate itself.
It’s very much like the teacher at school who can spend all year teaching pupils the rights and wrongs but the examination questions are set and marked by someone else.
The SSAIB has now been promoted from teacher to examiner and quite rightly so, but it now means they cannot teach any more – a very necessary restriction.
From my point of view it means that I have to hold my breath whilst inspecting and suppress the desire to drag the offending engineer out of the panel and say “Look you daft sod, this is how you should have done it”. Or to suggest a far better way to organise the files and books. So where does that leave me?
So what is a network manager?
Just recently the NSI have asked me to join their growing team of network managers. Next question – what is a network manager? Basically the job is to go out and talk to the registered companies, in not only NACOSS but also ICON and the ISI, find out what their problems are and see what can be done to help sort them out. The job is also to pass the word back down the line to the companies about new or revised policies and situations and to some extent to keep the companies in touch with issues and events. The network manager is a combination of Town crier, troubleshooter and human oil-can; I know it sounds daft, but if you think about it, it will make sense.
It was an opportunity not to be missed and therefore I have accepted their offer and I am looking forward to a new challenge.
Over the years I have made many good friends among the SSAIB staff, inspectors and installers. I have been made more than welcome into the homes and offices of a great many installing companies, My one big regret is the fact that I may not get to meet some of those friends again, but I wish them all the best for the future.
