Navy Graduation in Maintenance Excellence
In September a graduation ceremony at the Royal New Zealand Navy base at Devonport saw the first students to successfully complete the Skills4Work Maintenance Excellence core papers. The training involved a week long classroom based course followed by an exam and an extensive workplace project for each of the three papers of Maintenance Best Practice, Maintenance Planning & Scheduling and Maintenance & Reliability.
Navy technicians are widely regarded as some of the most highly trained maintenance engineers in the country. The additional training they now receive is undertaken to give a wider understanding of what constitutes international best practice in maintenance and how to apply that to their particular workplace. The focus is on how to move away from reactive maintenance onto more predictive and proactive strategies which will help increase operational availability and readiness.
Phil Hurford, Skills4Work’s programme manager for Maintenance Excellence explained further. “The RNZN recognised a need for up skilling their technicians when they are promoted from Leading Hand to Petty Officer, effectively progressing from the maintainer/supervisor role and stepping up to a maintenance management role. By embedding the concept and philosophies of international best practices for maintenance into the workforce they will undoubtedly see improvements in reliability and productivity and this will lead to the operational gains they are looking for. The Navy students are all very motivated and professional individuals and Skills4Work are extremely pleased to have been selected by the RNZN to work with them on this project.”
Training is an essential part of good maintenance but is often overlooked while we go about the daily challenges of keeping plant and equipment running. By learning the skills and concepts of international best practices and adopting them in the workplace we can start to make serious gains in reliability and productivity.
Skills4Work run Maintenance Excellence courses throughout the year. More details can be found at www.skills4work.org