CASE
STUDY #1 - Investing in Training and Development
of Personnel
"Even major fabricators get it wrong sometimes!"
Background:
A major “welding-led” company approached
Weld-Class-Solutions to establish the competence of
their large number of coded welders. There were growing
concerns over the continuing rise in rework and general
doubts in the abilities and competence of the personnel
involved in the fabrication and welding of safety critical
products. Major health and safety issues were also
a cause for concern.
How we helped:
 By close contact with key personnel within the organisation,
Weld-Class-Solutions were able to devise a plan with
realistic timescales and provide initially, a Training
Needs Analysis (TNA) of all personnel in order to find
out the gaps in individuals technical and practical
skills.
Each individual welder was assessed with the main
emphasis on agreed competencies and from the
information gathered; a training course and assessment
programme was designed and implemented with the express
objective of satisfying the seven outcomes below which
were agreed with our client.
Welders needed to be able to:
- Correctly set-up welding equipment for the different
applications used in production within the company.
- Correctly adjust and maintain welding equipment
to ensure the consistent performance required for
quality welding.
- Correctly interpret a welding procedure specification
and be able to understand the content.
- Correctly identify welding imperfections and be
able to understand their main causes and avoidance.
- Correctly assess a weld visually in relation to
features and imperfections and apply a defined acceptance
standard.
- Understand Health and Safety requirements related
to welding and fabrication.
- To be able to pass welding tests to the requirements
of BS EN 287 Pt 1.
Additionally, we addressed the following problems
to achieve value-added benefits and
overall cost reduction:
Problem 1: Uncontrolled use of
welding consumables.
Solution 1: A
reduction in cost of welding consumables was likely
to be 50-70% which in
real terms represents a saving of between £100-200K
per annum for this company.
Problem 2: Before
any training was given to the welders, the average
welds produced during the initial training need assessments
were commonly oversize.
Solution 2: By
reducing weld size to that specified on the drawings
and welding procedures,
costs of welding wire and shielding gas consumption
were potentially reduced
overnight by around 80%
Problem 3: Before the training
the welders were unable to read or understand the
content of the welding procedures. The consequence
of this was that the welding procedure specifications
were not being followed and variable weld quality
was evident.
Solution 3: Welders
were given tutorials on the meaning of the WPS content
and shown how to interpret
the information on the job during the practical training
part of the course.
Problem 4: Before our training
courses, few welders could pass a welder qualification
test mainly due to poor application by the third
party inspectorate of the approval standard.
Solution 4: Weld
Class-Solutions took over the service for welder
qualification testing.
Following training, most of the welders now legitimately
pass the test(s)
Problem 5: Before the training,
welders were unable to correctly set up the equipment.
Solution 5: Following
training, welders are now able to confidently set-up
their equipment and
recognise when things go wrong. They are also able
to carryout preventative
maintenance tasks.
There were a number of additional potential
knock-on benefits from the training including:
- Less distortion of the product and therefore less
costly rework. Re work and repair in welding is commonly
10 times the cost of the initial production welding.
- Increased productivity. Less volume of weld metal
deposited means greater efficiency and use of precious
production time.
- Better design by increased actual throat thickness
of the welds by increasing weld penetration can mean
greater strength compared to larger welds which commonly
have less penetration.
- Improved control of weld shape and reduced levels
of imperfections, as welders knew the actual function
of the welding parameters and could correctly identify
weld imperfections.
- This meant less repairs of weld imperfections that
are permitted within the acceptance standard and
repairs of weld imperfections that are outside of
the acceptance standard.
- Improved weld crater finishes at the weld stops
and improved re-start of welding means better root
penetration and smooth transitions.
- Better position and posture of welders when welding
means less strain or injury, fewer risks from welding
fume and better visibility of the weld pool means
better weld quality.
- Some of the welding procedures were questionable
due to human error in transposing details from WPQR’s
to WPS’s. Weld-Class-Solutions were able to
provide real guidance to the company welding engineers
on a whole host of improvements to the current documents.
- A matrix of welder qualifications was also generated
which provided valuable feedback information of the
testing and retesting needs for the welders.
Read more about how we can improve welder competence
in your organisation.
Do you wish to see what Weld-Class-Solutions
can do for your business?
Contact us today on 01223 839682/Mobile
+44 (0) 7790 163097
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