Service Competence
This post
will offer a glimpse into the subject of “competency of service personnel”.
A couple
of weeks ago, my sweetheart and I were sitting with a salesman in a security and
audio systems store deciding which system we might want to build into our new
home. High tech stuff like cameras with internet access live, high pitch
audible alarms, strobe lights, motion detectors, real time monitoring. A
complex world of electronics and high tech gadgetry meant to protect us, to keep
us safe and out of harm’s grasp.
As we
neared the end of the discussion and began talk about installation, I asked our
salesman about his Service Technicians. He began a well-rehearsed spiel around
the superiority of his guys in the field. “We have a workforce with over 10
years of experience.” “Many have been with us well over 10 years.” He stated, “You
know I used to be a Tech and was promoted to salesman.”
I
listened quietly until he was finished and asked: How do you know they are
doing it right? What qualifies your guys to do the work? I got exactly the
answer I expected:
“Well,
when they start they work with a more experienced Tech as a helper. Then they are
given more and more work to do on their own until the experienced Tech is confident
he can do it right.”
I pressed
him further: Yes, but how do you know he is competent outside of just
experience? How do you know he wasn’t trained by a “bubba” that had virtually
no theoretical understanding of the system? How do you qualify your people? These
questions went right over his head. He looked confused so I elaborated:
I came
from an industry that for many years have grappled with assuring consistent
competency of people. Even as I departed after 43 years, our industry continued
to seek effective ways to assure service Tech competence. It has been a long
and twisting journey.
In the
end, the salesman could only offer two pieces of evidence to my question: Experience and Customer complaints. Time on the
job and failures associated the work, neither formal. The latter was unacceptable.
He offered
no thoughts on formal Vocational Training Certifications or formal assessments.
No written or verbal theory or procedural installation training and assessments.
No records could be offered outside of employment records showing length of
time with the company. The conversation reconfirmed a belief as to how prevalent this is in
the US & for that matter, in the world. Memories began to flood back into my
consciousness, memories of tasks that went terribly wrong with both injury and death.
- a fatality due to a failure to check for pressure before pulling a special tool.
- a drill rig crew releasing the wrong mechanism on our equipment causing the release of a string of drill pipe into the derrick as the well blew out.
- an opened valve at the wrong time with dire results down stream of the valve.
- the fatality of an independent service company tech sent in to check a locking device - then incorrectly releasing the mechanism under pressure.
All of
these incidents happened because of a lack of knowledge, skills and ability. There
were other memories…many more memories.
Lack of theoretical
knowledge, skills and proven ability at a minimum, add costs to consumers
and a decrease in profits for business. Worse case – a lack of competence contributes to or causes severe injury and death and suffering. Some incidents have been considered
criminal as profits were placed in front of people.
As we
progress with the building of this house, I will be asking even more questions
about the capability of the people building and installing it’s systems. If my
confidence is low, I will hire an inspector to double check their work. The
same practice that happens frequently in the oil industry as oil companies
bring in outside inspectors to double check their vendors work even in the
middle of the manufacturing and proofing process.
The real
question in my mind is what will it take to change the service industry for the
better? I don’t have that answer at my fingertips. I suspect it won't get better by itself. The free market will naturally drive toward reductions in cost which prohibit formal competency systems. As much as I dislike regulation, I suspect we will continue to see public demands for more regulation when things go really really bad.
Incidents like Macondo and the Deep Water Horizon.
We all
should take time to ask service providers: What do you do to assure your people are competent? How
do you train them? How do you assess them before failures occur? Experience
alone is not good enough.
Best
Regards To All
Tom
*****************************************
Additional
reading and viewing if you wish:
Following
are links to two public videos with live Federal depositions of personnel who
worked on the Deep Water Horizon the night of the Macondo blow out. If you
haven’t seen the movie, you should. It’s not totally accurate by any stretch.
But it does do a pretty good job of depicting what it’s like on a rig where all
precautions have failed.
Watch the
first 6 minutes of the video link below. Watch more if you have time. https://www.c-span.org/video/?295172-3/deepwater-horizon-joint-investigation-mark-hay-testimony-part-1
Then open
the following link and drag the ball on the bar to the 21 minute point and
listen for three or four minutes.
Then read
the following from the Oil and Gas Journal.
“In agreeing to plead guilty, Transocean Deepwater
admitted members of its crew onboard the Deepwater Horizon, acting at the
direction of BP representatives, were negligent in failing to investigate clear
indications that the Macondo well was not secure and that oil and gas were
flowing into the well, DOJ said.”
Cameron,
the manufacturer of the BOP’s settled with BP as described in this article:
http://www.ogj.com/articles/2011/12/cameron-to-pay-bp-250-million-for-macondo-blowout-oil-spill.html
