certification of piping designer skills
TRANSCRIPT
Certification of Piping
Designer Skills
William G. Beazley Ph.D.,President, Information Assets, Inc.
(retired SPED Executive Director)
July 21, 2016
Anchorage, AK
Piping Designers• About 100,000 worldwide
• Highly Paid
• Most Knowledge Acquired On The Job
(OJT)
• Aging Workforce
• New Hiring is Incremental: Training is
Deferred
• Credibility Through Experience
Society of Piping Engineers
and Designers (SPED)
• Established 1980 (36 Years Old!)
• Non-Profit Educational Technical Society
• Worldwide Membership
• Exclusively Serving Piping Professional
Target SPED Member
• Equally attractive to
Petrochemical Plant Engineer,
Constructor, Operator and
Maintainer
• Involved with Plant
Containment Integrity
Throughout Plant Life Cycle
– Front End Design, thru
– Decommissioning
SPED Individual Members:
Broader Areas Of Employment
Across the Plant Life Cycle
Process Design
Front-End Design
Detail Design
Plant Construction
Commis-sioning
Operations &
Maintenance
Decommis-sioning
Plant Life Cycle Phase
SPED Member
Employment
New
Members
Near Term
Members Long Term
Members
Categories of Membership
• Student (Non-Voting)
• Individual (Voting)
• Corporate (Voting through Individual
Memberships)
– Global (100 Individual Memberships)
– Large (8 Individual Memberships, One Country)
– Small (3 Individual Memberships, One Country)
– Academic Institution (8 Individual Memberships)
SPED Corporate Members:
Professional Piping
Designer
Certification
• Document Baseline
Skills
• Formal Body of
Knowledge
• Progressive Difficulty
Why Certification?
The Case for Designers
• Documents Skills & Competency
• Increased Employability at Higher Pay
• Improved Professional Recognition
• Clear Professional Development Path
Why Certification?
The Case for EPC Employers
• 3rd Party Verification of Employee
Skills & Competency
• Hiring Candidate Qualifier
• Competitive Advantage on Contracts
• Professional Development Guidelines
Why Certification?
The Case for Owner/Operators
• 3rd Party Verification of Resume Skills & Competency
• Contractor Differentiation
• Staffing Qualifier
• Indicator of Professional Commitment and Continuing Development
SPED Certification Program for
Professional Piping Designer1. Four Levels of PPD:
– Level I: Basic - Properly Trained for Routing Pipe
– Level II: Advanced - Organize, QA Work
– Level III: Senior - Equipment Layout for Quality Piping
– Level IV: Lead PPD - Manage, Estimate & Assure Full Scope Work
• Qualification through:– Testing
– Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level I• Route, support, verify pipe within an existing
layout of process equipment IAW:– Process Engineer’s P&ID
– Agreed piping specification
– Piping design standards
– Fabrication and erection methods
– Inspection and maintenance practices.
• Use both 2D & 3D representations/models
• Qualification through Testing or Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level II• Level I plus:
– 4 Years of Acceptable Experience
– Design Impact of start-up, shutdown, vs normal operation
– Information needed before work begins (P&IDs,etc.)
– Determine when work is complete, correct
– Properly manages versions and releases
– Properly extracts data as needed (BOMs, etc.)
• Qualification through Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level III• Level II plus:
• 8 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Space, layout and assure commonly used process
equipment, supporting structures, site infrastructure and facilities, IAW:
• Process Engineer’s P&ID,
• Equipment spacing standards,
• Fabrication and erection methods
• Inspection and maintenance practices.
– Document correctly on appropriate representation
• Qualification through Testing and Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level IV• Level III plus:
• 12 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Assess in others the skills listed for Level I, II and III
• Demonstrated ability to :
• Bid man hours on limited information.
• Document Client Requirements
• Staffing, Resourcing Projects.
• Establish Schedules & Manage Change
• Qualification through Training and/or Acceptable Experience
PPD Promotion and Promulgation
• Over 1,000 Certified
on 4 Continents
• About 150 PPD
Certified Each Year
• Outreach to
Professional and
Software User
Group Meetings
• New 100% Club
PPD 100% Club• New Initiative for CM’s
• CM Pledges to Get
Pipers PPD Certified
within One Year.
• Gets Free Training
Resources and Help
SPED Course Offerings
• PPD BootCamp– Targets New, CAD Designers
– Fundamentals of Piping Routing and Layout
• Process Plant Layout– Targets Experienced Designers
– O&M Considerations in Layout & Piping
• PPD Certification Reviews
Components of a Typical Pump Suction
and Discharge Piping System(Source: Bausebacher and Hunt)
• Discharge Gate Valve
• Check Valve
• Eccentric Reducer (Flat on Top)
• Concentric Reducer
• Pressure Gauge
• Temporary Strainer
• Suction Gate Valve
• Straight Run
• Casing Vent
• Casing Drain
Typical Topic
SPED Videos• Piper BootCamp:
– Approx 20 hours of video of
voice over power point slides.
– Preparation for PPD Level III
• Process Plant Layout
– PPL Version 1: 66 hours of
video of live presentations
– PPL Version 2: Approx 20
hours of video of voice over
power point slides.
– Preparation for PPD Level III
2010 Online Training Courses
– Process Plant Layout• PPD Level III Exam
– PPD Piper BootCamp • PPD Level I Exam
– Based on the SPED Piper Video Series• PPL Video Course – Upgraded
– PPL V 1.0 & New PPL V 2.0
• Piper BootCamp Video Course
SPED RP-001
• Recommended Practice for Assessing
Piping Designer Baseline Skills and
Competencies
• Controlling Document for Certification
• Implementable by all Trainers,
Employers, Educators, etc.
Levels of
Competence
Future – Badges for Specific Skills
• Digital Credentials for Specific, Targeted
Skills• Think Boy Scout Merit Badges
• More than PDFs of Certificates
• Portable (Backpacks)
• Relatively Self-Documenting, Self-Verifying
– Badges tells where to verify itself
– Contains:
• Skill Description
• Evidence
Digital Credential Advantages• Owned by the user
– Can be sent to employer
– Motivates Learning
• Harder to Forge
– Baked by Issuer
– Issued to Earner
– Displayed by “Displayer”
– Confirmed by “Issuer” (at least in Moodle)
How PDU Uses Badges and Why• Already had the videos and PPT Notes
• 173 total subtopics (following user’s preferences)
• PPT Subtopics not with separate objectives– 15-45 Minutes,
– Often used for Lunch and Learn
• PIPINGDESIGNU.COM– Subscription business model
– Some video trainers use course business model
• Badges Suited to Subscription Site– Engagement is the key to long subscriptions
– Badges are self-rewarding credential
– Many subtopics favor mini-credentials
– Experience shows users pick topics of immediate interest
Business Model: Course vs Subscription
Course Model
• Goal: Completion
• Design: Sequential
• Good For: Body of Knowledge
• Credential: Certifications, Degrees
Subscription
Model• Goal: Subscriber Retention
• Design: Non-Sequential
• Good For: OJT, JIT Skills
• Credential: Mini-Credentials
118 Badges Defined
(21 July 2016)
For More Information:
www.spedweb.com
Contact:
Catherine Van der Walt
Operations Manager
Society of Piping Engineers and Designers
9668 Westheimer Road
Suite 200-242
Houston, Texas 77063
713 960 4478
http://www.spedweb.com/
Questions?
Discussion
Video Licensing Options
• Single Country
– Unlimited Copy/Access within Country
• Global Licensing
– Unlimited Copy/Access within Corp Family
– Requires Global Corporate Membership
– Update Options Available
• Security Requirements: Reasonable
control of access to Videos.
New Training Initiatives:
Green Process Piping
New Training Initiatives: Process
Technology Labs for Pipers
SPED Blogs
• spedcanada.pipingdesign.com
• spedeurope.wordpress.com
• SPED Group Members on linkedin.com
• www.spedweb.com (members only)
• Planned:
– professionalpipingdesigner.com
– SPED Asia
SPED Chapter Rules
• Few rules as possible
• Promote local member interests and
professional development.
• Must be locally led
• Conform only to SPED Objectives, Standards
and Integrity
• Funded by dues rebate plus chapter dues.
• Meet at local firms, suppliers, vendors, etc.
And What About This?(Source: Howard F. Rase)
Piping Design for Process Plants
What Can Companies Do To
Help?
• Endorse PPD Certification
• Review and Comment on Certification Criteria
• Sell Certification Inside Your Organization
• Become Certified
• Ask for Certification in RFPs & Job Postings
• Become a Sponsor