Membership voice, November - December 2009
As part of TWI's commitment to the continuous improvement of its Membership Services the business has created a new post to oversee its global training business.
The elected candidate for the new role, Dr Chris Peters, takes the reins having established a worthy track record at TWI since joining in 2001. Most recently he was Technology Group Manager for the Manufacturing Support Group, which in turn, comprised the welding engineering section and the business process section.
He sees his new role as having a strong overseas content. Immediately after talking to the Bulletin he left for a lengthy tour of Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia where TWI already has well established bases in Johor Bahru and Kuala Lumpur.
'I really feel that we've been global 'on paper' for quite some time. What I want is to make sure that we are physically and literally a global organisation, and that demands a good infrastructure' he says. 'The opportunity we have here, is to develop a more international TWI culture...that is certainly my ambition.'
Historically TWI has tended to spearhead its presence through training. But a recent example of starting from scratch exists, and that is in Houston, Texas.
'Certainly we see exploring possibilities among American Petroleum Institute members as an area for us, and many of our oil and gas sector Industrial Members are based in the southern USA. At the moment it is very much a technology focus in this region but I am sure there is scope for delivering advanced training products in the near future.
Servicing the needs of TWI's Industrial Membership is certainly one of Peters's top priorities. There will undoubtedly be more courses, but perhaps the primary responsibility he acknowledges is to make sure that TWI has the administrative framework and infrastructure in place to support those courses, and deliver them to a very high quality level.
'There are still tremendous opportunities for growth within the training market in the Middle East and South East Asia. We have local support in those regions; offices, systems, equipment and of course human resources' he explains. 'What I would like to see is a great deal more independence. We will continue to provide the best possible support with lecturers and we get a lot of the exam scripts back here in the UK for marking. We'd provide a better, more streamlined service if we could handle that work locally, literally on the spot.'
He recognises that rolling out the Peters vision will require studious adherence to maintaining TWI's quality standards and its relationship with the Certification bodies. To ensure that its training and certification actually has high value in the market place is a TWI imperative.
'If we were just giving these things away' he reflects. 'Then gaining a CSWIP qualification wouldn't have much value'.
He has a number of ideas about enlarging the training portfolio by adding a variety of new training courses particularly non-destructive testing of pipe, pressure vessels and tanks.
'Certainly we've been very successful with diving courses here in the UK. We already have a diving tank partnership in Thailand and we will be looking to bolster that with a lot of interest.'
Welder skills are already taught by TWI in collaboration with the Construction Industry Training Board in Malaysia. But what Peters would like to see, possibly by strengthening the diploma programme, is more emphasis on the more modern automated welding and inspection techniques.
'I think this is excellent timing' he says. 'What we've seen is very strong growth within TWI, and TWI Training in particular, despite the recession. If we are able to position ourselves correctly in a global sense, then as others come out of recession we and our Members will benefit.'
TWI is very interested in fulfilling the specific needs of individual companies and is also very interested to hear from businesses that want bespoke training courses that will better meet their individual internal needs.
He concludes; 'We have to recognise that this business does require some economies of scale. On a one-to-one basis it would probably be too expensive for the client, but TWI is always very pleased to speak to anyone with a proposal. We simply have to bear in mind, when we are speaking to individual companies about training courses, that we have to achieve the minimum numbers to make it worthwhile. But that's rarely a problem.'
