Rob Tindall, a project manager with Perth-based Underground Services Australia, was presented with his certificate by Menno Henneveld, president of both the Australasian Society for Trenchless Technology and its international counterpart.
The national qualification for Certificate III in Civil Construction (Trenchless Technology) was developed during the review of the civil construction training package in 2003. This followed initial work in Western Australia by the Civil Contractors Federation in conjunction with the ASTT. The training resources were later developed through CCF in WA with support from ASTT and with funding support from the state’s Building & Construction Industry Training Fund. The way is now open for workers in the trenchless technology industry in any part of Australia to undertake the course through a registered training organisation to achieve the nationally recognised skills accreditation.
Mr Henneveld said the development of the course would have a major impact on raising the level of training and quality standards in the industry. While the Trenchless Technology industry had grown rapidly in recent years, the expertise of its practitioners had not always kept pace, he said.
The project was spearheaded by Mike Morris, former CEO of the CCF’s WA branch, who made particular mention of the project work carried out by Randy Flierman from Avenir Consulting. “Randy’s development and consultative skills played a critical role in ensuring the qualification structure and resources properly reflected what the industry wanted.”
Mr Morris, now a senior executive with Underground Services, said the impetus for developing the course came from initial discussions with Peter Rowles followed by an approach by Mr Henneveld and ASTT secretary Jeff Pace about three years ago. Even earlier, some of the leading civil contractors in WA had been pushing for specific training packages for Trenchless Technology.
“With ageing utilities and the growing use of infill infrastructure for underground power, communications cables and so on, there were more and more contractors using trenchless techniques so there was an obvious need for formal qualifications,” he said.
“Menno and Jeff came to the CCF and asked if it would be possible to get some training in place. The idea then was, if the ASTT could come forward with some seed funding, could we provide the development expertise and a training path.”
The development of the specialist course started with a review of the existing modules in the civil construction training package, making selections, modifications, or developing new competencies as required to establish modules for the training and assessment of particular skills appropriate to the use of Trenchless Technology, and packaging them into a complete industry-specific qualification that could be made available generally as a training resource.
The new qualification and New Installations training resources were unveiled to the industry through a presentation and workshop conducted by Morris and Flierman at the 2004 ASTT National Conference in Melbourne.
Tindall was a mechanical fitter with Underground Services before making the switch to the Trenchless Technology division about seven years ago. Under Managing Director Peter Rowles, the company has been a leader in advanced underground drilling techniques in the WA industry for many years.
“I looked after all the drills for a long time, not only horizontal directional drilling (HDD) but microtunnelling and auger boring,” Tindall said. “In the workshop we experimented with microtunnelling and guided augers, and we have installed gravity sewers using HDD and getting the same tolerances as with microtunnelling.”
As the first in Australia with the new qualification, Tindall will have a role in training all the Underground Services crew to the same standard.