This month, the Training Institute for Dredging (TID) commenced an elaborate training program aboard several dredging vessels owned by Huta Marine Works, the leading marine contractor in Saudi Arabia.
The program includes staff training and several weeks of intensive on-the-job training for the vessels’ crew members. It follows an agreement reached between Huta Marine Works and TID (part of IHC Merwede) earlier this year.
The 48-day training program involves approximately 25 dredging operators and takes place aboard six cutter suction dredgers from Huta Marine Works’ sizeable dredging fleet. The dredgers are operating on either side of the Arabian Peninsula, near Dammam on the Persian Gulf, and in Jeddah, the largest seaport on the Red Sea. An experienced IHC Merwede dredgemaster spends one week on each vessel, teaming up with the crew while covering subjects such as efficient anchoring, spud cycles and vacuum limits, ultimately working on production optimisation.
An improved on-the-job training methodology, which includes the TID-developed Reporter App, plays an important part in the program. This evolved approach combines a careful training set-up, based on a pre-test of existing competences and subsequent definition of competence gaps, with a post-test and evaluation of training results.
Accordingly, a detailed overview of improvements and remaining training needs or potential can be generated. The tablet-based Reporter App provides a complete means of surveying the training trajectory, logging all goals and results, while providing real-time access to all data during on-board activities.
An additional part of the training package, organised for staff both in Dammam and Jeddah, comprises a five-day course dealing with subjects such as project management, working methods and production calculation. Furthermore, selected staff members will participate in a four-day course on hydraulic pumps and slurry transportation. This training also takes place on both sides of the peninsula and extensively covers topics such as influences of solid particles on the pump and slurry process, and characteristics of specific pumps, drives and pipeline configurations.
TID’s thorough training of personnel results in smooth operations and enables the customer to fully benefit from the state-of-the-art equipment it has recently ordered from IHC Merwede.
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Press Release, April 11, 2014