Iam relieved to say we have now completed the restructuring of the SAIW to ensure that we can remain sustainable in the long term. Our future is now looking much better. For the first time since 2015, the SAIW should reverse the trend of depleting reserves.
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It was critical for us to optimise class sizes on our training courses and to align our lecturing staff numbers with South African industry’s real needs for skilled personnel. To do this, we have thoroughly analysed regular and ongoing course attendance and compared our offering to that in other parts of the world. We have also reconstituted the Technology and Training Committee to ensure that our course offerings are fully aligned with the needs of industry. We will continue to offer courses in the regions where there is sufficient demand and ensure that we are able to cost-effectively deliver sufficient numbers of skilled and qualified personnel to meet local industry’s annual needs.
To meet additional or unexpected training requirements, for special projects, for example, we have established a network of experienced people we can call upon on a contract basis, many of whom were previously employed here at the SAIW. And I am also pleased to say that we are still attracting long-term interest from our loyal client base for qualified Inspection and NDT personnel.
In spite of many companies having experienced difficulties over the past few years, the number of ISO 3834 certified companies continues to grow. But rather than employing an extra person to do additional auditing, we will also handle this growth by using contractors for the auditing, which has worked well for us in the past.
On a recent visit to an SAIW member that does construction work for the mining industry, the owner of the facility asked about ISO 3834 welding certification. Mining companies haven’t yet adopted ISO-3834 in any significant way, but there seems now to be a trend among larger mining houses, which are taking the view that welding is a safety-critical process. This is certainly widely acknowledged by most fabricators.
We also sit on the board of the Constructional Engineering Association of South Africa (CEA) and examples of welding quality standards issues have regularly been raised. Even though unlikely to be made a mandatory requirement, fabrication and construction companies supplying into the mines need properly qualified welders, welding and NDT inspectors and senior supervisory personnel. There is certainly scope for us to use our training and ISO 3834 experience to help these fabricators raise their welding-related quality and safety standards.
Africa is also offering the SAIW opportunities for growth. Shelton Zichawo, David Makoge and Willie Williams recently visited Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, where 89 welders were trained on the International Welding Practitioner course. These IWPs will become the Welding Instructors in Ethiopia’s nine TVET colleges. In addition, we recently ran an initial training course for a UNIDO Project in Liberia. Eleven Liberian welders who have been with us for the past six months will be taking their skills back to Liberia to share with local welders.
With our WIN network partners, we have just launched our next eCourse, which will be about Theory of Constraint (ToC) and will be presented on the 16 and 18 August 2022. Any of our ISO 3834 clients can enrol as many of their welding and management teams as they wish for the price of a single delegate. I urge you all to consider signing up.
John Tarboton
