ROV Training

[Andy Shiers]

Desb , I did not say treat all newbees as children 🙂
only that any job when you are new means you are at the bottom of the rung and Learn 8) Whether you are young or an "Old Bull" from another planet , it does not make a sodding difference , you are still green in the proffesion so start at the bottom.
I also did not say the trainee has no imput into the team.
Anybody who has worked with me will know I welcome comflabs from any quarter 🙂 That’s what team work is all about.
Tc1 , 200 days is just over 6 1/2 months. There is no way a person be it young or old can acquire the knowledge of experience. This is the ROV industry, There is no other Industry like it 😯 Not even close ! That is why it’s such a challenge and a joy for me because it is so unique 😀
That is not to say that there are a few people who are not fast learners and adaptable to "Slot in" quicker than others. They will still not have enough experience and it is easier to grade as well as pay structure to put a time frame in like this.
Saying hours of experience is one thing. Saying worked in the offshore Industry for five years is another 8)
Desb , When you say people with five years that still have no clue we mean been in and out of the ROV Industry ( At a push ) for 2 and half years and they are muppets , hmm ? I think it is safe to say they would have earned a ruputation by then as useless, Don’t you ?.
This leads back to what I have said before about the whole school thing ! A person wishing to get a job in the Industry goes to a ROV operator and says "Gevus a job !"
There is a slot and the ROV operator employs him , puts him through manufacturers courses and he learns from the bottom rung up. The ROV operator has invested time and money into the trainee and therefor looks after him better and he stays with the company and gains experience.
This in its self actually polices or governs the amount of personnel in the Industry as the "ROV Schools littered around the world" have no looksey 🙂 There is no glutteny of Wannabe rov pilots desperate for a job and willing to go out via an agency ( Which I’m dead against )
See 😀 The Money grabbing barstewards that only think about lining their pockets in "ROV Schools" and don’t give a rats ass about the type of people or the future employment start closing down , YIPEEEEEEEE 😀

[Andy Shiers]

Scott ,

yes! It’s done in the aviation field, a field I would like to remind people, that’s not too different from ours.

I beg to differ there chap , The only thing thats close is the fact that we have XYZ access, ……….. More Helecopter than Airplane as we can go backwards unless of course you refer to the Harrier Jump jet ( Another fine invention thought up by the Brits and sold down the river to other countries 🙁 )
We are in an Industry unique ! which is growing in size as well as technology 8)

[tc1]

lostboy,
No probs bud.I posted it as a starting point for discussion.At some point IROVA will have to publish a set of rules in relation to titles and training.

[Scott Beveridge]

Scott ,

yes! It’s done in the aviation field, a field I would like to remind people, that’s not too different from ours.

I beg to differ there chap , The only thing thats close is the fact that we have XYZ access, ……….. More Helecopter than Airplane as we can go backwards unless of course you refer to the Harrier Jump jet ( Another fine invention thought up by the Brits and sold down the river to other countries 🙁 )
We are in an Industry unique ! which is growing in size as well as technology 8)

Dude,

I did say not TOO different… And yes, floppy wings (choppers) are in the aviation industry. My point being is there’s a lot of checks and balances in the aviation industry (inhouse as well as federal) whereas the ROV industry is in a stage where we, as a group of ROV professionals are seeing that not all is rosy as far as accountability is concerned. Maybe you should write to the folks that could possibly make a change and throw in a few suggestions.

[Andy Shiers]

I have done 😀 and I will in the future 😯
" Once more unto the breach , dear friends …… Once more !"

[PaulB]

Hi,

My name is Paul Bury; I work at The Underwater Centre.

Recently, a number of comments have been posted about The Underwater Centre that are factually inaccurate. Whilst we have no issue with people raising legitimate concerns, we do take issue with posters making factually inaccurate statements that may have an impact on our business.

James Mc wrote: "See… not a jot about Hydraulics, so what use is that?" and "Especially when there is every indication that it’s lacking in mechanical/hydraulic content." and "they’ll be flooding the market with people that have no inkling of hydraulics".

Our published course breakdown clearly lists the course content which includes hydraulics theory and practicals. The Hydraulics section is: SQA Unit D991 12 Engineering Systems – Hydraulics.

Here’s a link to the information:

http://manage.hotscot.net/customer_images/37DB5CAC-0CB5-47FB-ADDC-B28DB8CA3E10/pdfs/premium%20rov%20course%20detail.pdf

Subman wrote: "The Schools are still turning people out at a few hundred a month".

This is certainly not true for us, no matter how you do the sums, there are not a few hundred people completing ROV courses each month.

Whilst much of the advice is cogent and informative, there is also content which is speculative, such as Subman’s comment "Doing a course and getting a Rov cert means nothing".

For a significant number of students, training at The Underwater Centre has allowed them to begin a new career. I don’t for a second claim that everyone who does an ROV course will carve out a career for themselves in ROV, but, at the last count, a little over 70% of people who complete one of our ROV courses go on to find work as ROV Pilot Technicians. This information is collected by contacting every student, six months after they have completed their course. Whilst there are some very good people who take longer than six months to find work, the six month point seems a reasonable yardstick to assess the benefits of training at The Underwater Centre.

Subman’s comment is one of perception and perspective, and whilst a certificate from one of our courses may well mean nothing to him, there is significant evidence, in the form of guys working, that suggests this is not a universal view. In addition to this, we have provided training for a number of ROV companies involved in Civils projects, u/w archaeology, u/w survey/NDT as well as offshore oil & gas. It could be argued that companies paying us money to train their staff is proof that they think our course are worth something, but they must perceive value in the courses we run, otherwise, they wouldn’t pay cash to send people to train with us. As an addendum, of the last course we ran (which finished in December) 75% of the students are already working in the ROV industry.

Regards

Paul Bury
Head of ROV Training & Operations
The Underwater Centre (Fort William) Ltd
Email; info@theunderwatercentre.co.uk
http://www.theunderwatercentre.co.uk
Tel (+44)(0) 1397 703 786

[bt]

So how many students did you have on the course completed in december and how many have you got on course at the moment???

[Andy Shiers]

Well Mr Underwater centre. Factual not speculative.
Your school and ones just like yours have flooded the market with personnel to the point that people just out of school are going out for free or close to it to get the experience and try to recoup the amount of money they spent on your courses 👿 That’s not hearsay its truthsay.
your "Market research" has not taken into account that spitting Pilot/Techs out of your classes and Schools just like yours since 2005 would have an adverse effect on job prospects. That is NOTHING to do with this recession we are supposedly going through it’s just basic common sense as to how large the ROV Industry would grow in regards to
a) Technology
b)Oil and the financial market and c) The ROV company prospects.
So you are telling me that most of your candidates were all paid for by their respective ROV companies who have taken them on ?
Or that most of the people doing your course was paid for by the archaeological society ?
Are you also going to say on this forum that Job prospects for your candidates are 100 % garunteed or that maybe your "Bean-counters" and shareholders have realised that putting more Trainees out in the field will not help the Industry and shelve all courses for individual paying people ?????????? Somehow I don’t think so 👿
How’s that for consideration.
Talk about killing the Golden goose 😯

[tc1]

How many people have failed the course?

[Scott Beveridge]

Gents,
Back in June last year IROVA posted as below.

How about taking that as a starting point and refine it into a bone fide set of working rules.

So Far

WORLD ROV ASSOCIATION

This is a first amendable draft of some simple rules of membership of this association.

OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this association is to provide a body of professional ROV people who have abilities to a known standard and who expect to work under our agreed set of pay and conditions within the ROV industry as a whole in addition to the existing offshore rules and regulations applying to work and safety.

To provide potential clients with the knowledge of the minimum capabilities of the people working on their tasks.

To help avoid unscrupulous employers using under paid unskilled ROV personnel as fillers of short manned ROV teams to maximize their profits.

CONTENTS

General agreed rules applying to members of this association

Rules on pay

Rules on conditions

Rules on achieving each level of this association

RULES IN ACHIEVING EACH LEVEL OF THIS ASSOCIATION

It is proposed that there will be five levels of membership within this association as follows:

Trainee ROV Pilot/Technician
ROV Pilot Technician
Senior ROV Pilot Technician
ROV Team Supervisor/Manager
ROV Superintendent

TRAINEE PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential trainees who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered trainee pilot/technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have a recognized engineering qualification that has relevance to ROV work AND at least one year in industry gaining engineering experience.

Alternatively the potential candidate must provide checkable proof of an engineering background with at least four years experience of engineering relevant to ROV work.

ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 300 real flying hours (excluding TMS and babysitting hours.)

Minimum 50 hours each flying in and around structures, pipelines and diver support.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ abilities.

Testimonials from three different contactable ROV Pilot Technicians on the candidates team working abilities.

SENIOR ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential Senior ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Senior Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 500 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities as a potential Senior ROV Pilot Technician.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential Senior ROV Technician.

ROV TEAM SUPERVISOR / MANAGER

Potential ROV Team Supervisor/Managers who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate should have achieved training as a manager or a teacher/trainer.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Senior Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 700 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

I have only posted this here because it seem that discussion is going ahead on this thread about training.

Good point tc1… The above could be fine-tuned. Anybody? Agree / disagree??

[Robert Black]

Scott, I fully agree there has to be system specific training which should be run in house but if we are expected to hold IMCA certs by clients then they should be all worth the same. If a client asks for two pilots techs and a supervisor all with the correct cerification then he should be able to know exactly what standard of training those personnel have had.

It is possible to do a assessor course that allows a company to asses and issue IMCA certification to it’s staff without the need to shell out to a third party for the same piece of paper. I’m doing it in March and I’ll happily take the Pepsi challenge with any trainee I turn out against one from these "schools". We as an industry should decide who is sufficiently trained and qualified and not a bunch of chancers from the Scottish highlands, Philipines or anywhere else.

[Scott Beveridge]

Scott, I fully agree there has to be system specific training which should be run in house but if we are expected to hold IMCA certs by clients then they should be all worth the same. If a client asks for two pilots techs and a supervisor all with the correct cerification then he should be able to know exactly what standard of training those personnel have had.

It is possible to do a assessor course that allows a company to asses and issue IMCA certification to it’s staff without the need to shell out to a third party for the same piece of paper. I’m doing it in March and I’ll happily take the Pepsi challenge with any trainee I turn out against one from these "schools". We as an industry should decide who is sufficiently trained and qualified and not a bunch of chancers from the Scottish highlands, Philipines or anywhere else.

Makes a helluva a lot of sense to me!!! Especially those in the hire / fire position.

[tc1]

[Edit by Admin]
Please note. This thread has been split from another, in the Rookie section, as it wandered off topic and turned into an industry training discussion. One or two comments may be in response to the previous thread ( called More Newbie Advice ), but the rest pretty much fits the new subject title.

Gents,
Back in June last year IROVA posted as below.

How about taking that as a starting point and refine it into a bone fide set of working rules.

So Far

WORLD ROV ASSOCIATION

This is a first amendable draft of some simple rules of membership of this association.

OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this association is to provide a body of professional ROV people who have abilities to a known standard and who expect to work under our agreed set of pay and conditions within the ROV industry as a whole in addition to the existing offshore rules and regulations applying to work and safety.

To provide potential clients with the knowledge of the minimum capabilities of the people working on their tasks.

To help avoid unscrupulous employers using under paid unskilled ROV personnel as fillers of short manned ROV teams to maximize their profits.

CONTENTS

General agreed rules applying to members of this association

Rules on pay

Rules on conditions

Rules on achieving each level of this association

RULES IN ACHIEVING EACH LEVEL OF THIS ASSOCIATION

It is proposed that there will be five levels of membership within this association as follows:

Trainee ROV Pilot/Technician
ROV Pilot Technician
Senior ROV Pilot Technician
ROV Team Supervisor/Manager
ROV Superintendent

TRAINEE PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential trainees who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered trainee pilot/technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have a recognized engineering qualification that has relevance to ROV work AND at least one year in industry gaining engineering experience.

Alternatively the potential candidate must provide checkable proof of an engineering background with at least four years experience of engineering relevant to ROV work.

ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 300 real flying hours (excluding TMS and babysitting hours.)

Minimum 50 hours each flying in and around structures, pipelines and diver support.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ abilities.

Testimonials from three different contactable ROV Pilot Technicians on the candidates team working abilities.

SENIOR ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential Senior ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Senior Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 500 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities as a potential Senior ROV Pilot Technician.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential Senior ROV Technician.

ROV TEAM SUPERVISOR / MANAGER

Potential ROV Team Supervisor/Managers who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate should have achieved training as a manager or a teacher/trainer.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Senior Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 700 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

I have only posted this here because it seem that discussion is going ahead on this thread about training.

[James McLauchlan]

Slightly off the new topic but I feel the need to respond to Paul of TUC.

James Mc wrote: "See… not a jot about Hydraulics, so what use is that?" and "Especially when there is every indication that it’s lacking in mechanical/hydraulic content." and "they’ll be flooding the market with people that have no inkling of hydraulics".

Our published course breakdown clearly lists the course content which includes hydraulics theory and practicals. The Hydraulics section is: SQA Unit D991 12 Engineering Systems – Hydraulics.

Here’s a link to the information:

http://manage.hotscot.net/customer_images/37DB5CAC-0CB5-47FB-ADDC-B28DB8CA3E10/pdfs/premium%20rov%20course%20detail.pdf

Paul,
I have to confess didn’t look at the in depth course breakdown but most likely did what any potential customer might do when checking on what’s generally included in the courses. I read the course overview as immediately presented on your websit.

On TUC’s website the page on ROV Courses which I presume is supposed to give a general overview of course content, there is no mention of hydraulics but electronics is mentioned more than once.

So, it does appear that limited hydraulic training is indeed included in the course, but nobody would not know that until they get to the bottom of page three of the so called Premium course breakdown.

On both courses the hydraulic content is described as follows:

The third week of the course moves on to look at hydraulic systems including why such systems are well suited to ROVs, designing and interpreting hydraulic circuit diagrams, stripping down, inspecting and servicing hydraulic components and considering care and maintenance of the same. Where possible, components will be provided (either good or faulty) for students to strip down and rebuild which hopefully helps to de-mystify the world of hydraulics.

I fail to understand how a ‘look‘ at hydraulics (TUC’s words not mine) along with ‘where possible component will be provided’ will hopefully demystify the world of hydraulics!

What are you trying to achieve by that? There is no way a look at hydraulics with maybe, or maybe not, providing components for student to work on will demystify the world of hydraulics!

This what we keep harking on about. Training Establishments such as TUC are taking on people that do not have the type of background the industry needs and through limited training are ‘hopefully demystifying the world of hydraulics. What is needed are people that are formally trained in hydraulics and electronics and not those hopefully demystified in any way!!

In fact I am somewhat surprised that a training school is using such wording as ‘hopefully demystifying’ in it’s literature without people higher up the industry food chain asking why you are not actually offering formal training, proven to work, rather than operate on mere ‘hope’!

As has been said often enough and whilst ROVworld is around will no doubt continues to be said…
Training establishments such as yours are doing nothing other than raising false hopes and flooding the market with ill trained ‘potential’ trainees.

[Robert Black]

Hi,

My name is Paul Bury; I work at The Underwater Centre.

As an addendum, of the last course we ran (which finished in December) 75% of the students are already working in the ROV industry.

The first line of this quote is probably the truth. But c’mon, really? You want us to swallow that last one? In a really quiet winter season when hundreds of guys are sitting on the beach and companies world wide are actively tightening belts(making redundancies), you reckon we are hiring your ‘graduates’?

The secret to a good lie Paul is knowing when to stop. 🙄

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