On the Job Training and need of competency assesment

On the Job Training and needs of competency assessment

Hands-on preparing, otherwise called OJT, is a hands-on technique for showing the abilities, information, and capabilities required for representatives to play out a particular activity inside the working environment. Representatives learn in a domain where they should rehearse the information and abilities acquired during their preparation.

Hands-on preparing utilizes the current work environment devices, machines, reports, gear, and information to show a representative of how to adequately carry out their responsibility. Therefore, no subs exist that will require a representative to make the preparation move to the working environment.

Preparing happens inside the representative's typical activity condition and may happen as the person in the question plays out their real work. Or on the other hand, it might happen somewhere else inside the work environment utilizing committed preparing rooms, workstations, or hardware.

Is only training is sufficient?

The answer to this question is No. There are many instances in Industry that documents are available for the on the Job training but actually, the person is not validated what he has understood from the training. Training is a two-way process. It is the interaction between the receptor and the trainer. Many people have experienced the scenario’s training where only in one way communication is imparted. Only a few people get concentrated on the subject and few people get bored after some time and get sleep in the classroom But if there is an interactive session the scenario gets different. Of course, it all depends on the trainer. So it is very essential that the competency assessment of the trainees must be ensured after training and to be validated. So in the organization Competency Assesment System must be implemented otherwise it may lead to any unintentional unavoidable situations where it will be difficult to survive the way it is required to.

I would like to share here the incident regarding the importance of the job training at the workplace.

The incident is of propane gas explosion and took place in Little General convenience store in rural Ghent, West Virginia, near the city of Beckley on January 30, 2007.

The blast killed two propane service technicians and two emergency responders from the Ghent Fire Department. A volunteer firefighter was seriously injured, as were four store employees who were inside the store when the gas ignited

In this case, two emergency responders were killed and two propane technicians in a seemingly routine operation. The incident investigation was carried out by the special agencies they identified nearly 30 minutes were elapsed between release and explosion. If there'd been an evacuation during those 30 minutes, all of the lives would have been saved.

The Little General gas station and convenience store were located on Flat Top Road in Ghent. Inside the wood-framed the building, the store sold soft drinks, magazines, and snacks, as well as pizza, which was cooked in two propane-fired ovens. In 1994, the Southern Sun Company installed a 500-gallon propane tank against the back wall of the store. Southern Sun sold its propane business to Ferrell gas in 1996. The logo on the tank was changed, but the tank itself was left in place. Years later, in January 2007, the Little General Company changed propane providers from Ferrell gas to Thompson Gas. Appalachian Heating, a local firm selling propane for Thompson Gas installed a new tank ten feet from the building. There were still about 350 gallons of propane in the old tank, which Appalachian Heating intended to transfer through a special valve hose and pump to the newly installed Thompson Gas tank. To make such a transfer, a technician must first unscrew a safety plug from the top of the liquid withdrawal valve on the tank to be emptied. The safety plug has a small hole in its side, called a tell-tale. If propane is released through the hole, it is a warning that a dangerous release is likely if the plug is completely removed. So if propane is seen, the plug should be retightened. If no propane is observed escaping, the plug may be removed and a valve with a special fitting is then threaded into the liquid withdrawal valve. This special fitting depresses a spring-loaded mechanism, allowing propane to flow through the valve and into the hose to transfer the propane.

On the morning of January 30, 2007, two technicians from Appalachian Heating arrived to put the new tank into service. The lead technician then departed for another job site, leaving an inexperienced junior technician to prepare for the transfer of propane unsupervised.

At about 10:25 a.m., the junior technician began to unscrew the safety plug from the liquid withdrawal valve, a valve they would later determine was permanently stuck in the open position. Propane likely flowed out of the hole in the plug, but the technician had not been trained on the importance of checking for the escaping gas. Immediately, as the technician removed the plug, a jet of propane sprayed upward through the valve. A roll upward white cloud of flammable propane vapor formed behind the store. The propane struck the eves of the building and flowed into the store through vents in the roof overhang and directly into the restrooms through two vent pipes. The flammable gas also defused down through the ceiling. The gas, color in grey, was invisible to the employees inside, but they noted the spreading odor associated with propane. The dense vapor also accumulated at ground level around the tank and the foundation of the building. The technician, standing in the midst of the propane cloud, was unable to stop the release due to the force of the jet. Over the next almost half hour, all four store employees remained inside and the technician stayed by the tank, as others responding to the propane release arrived. There was no evacuation as propane continued to escape from the tank. At 10:28 a.m., shortly after the leak began, the junior technician called the lead Technician, informing him of the situation. At 10:31, the lead technician called Thompson Gas technical support for guidance. The lead technician then called the junior technician back and likely told him to call an emergency response team leader in the control room. At 10:40 a.m., the junior technician made an emergency call.

The emergency control room team asked about the location of an emergency.  He told the operator "I need the fire department down at the little General store in Ghent need a ... I got a propane leak ... I need their help to secure the area."

He went on to say, "I work for Appalachian Heating. We’ve had a dysfunction in the tanks and I have a leaky tank."

At 10:43 a.m., the Control room operator broadcasts the report of a propane leak. And asked the emergency rescue team to respond to Flat Top Road in Ghent, the Little General, across from Flat Top Lake ... report of a propane leak.

Four minutes later, at about 10:47 a.m., a Ghent volunteer Fire Department Chief arrived. He ordered the store to close. The employees turned off the gasoline pumps, locked the door and remained inside. They posted a sign on the door reading "Store Closed Due to Gas Leak. “Despite the imminent danger, no one inside or outside the building evacuated.

Two emergency medical technicians arrived in an ambulance. They went to the tank to examine the technician for a frostbite injury, likely caused by contact with the liquid propane. Just after 10:50 a.m., the lead technician returned to the scene and joined the junior technician at the leaking tank. A short time later, another volunteer firefighter arrived in his personal vehicle and met the others at the tank. It was now approaching 10:53 a.m. The two propane technicians remained near the leaking tank. The Fire Captain, the firefighter, and an emergency medical technician stood nearby. The other EMT directed traffic away from the store. The four employees waited inside. The Chief told the firefighter, make sure everybody's out, OK? But thirty seconds later, as the firefighter walked toward the store, the propane found an undetermined ignition source and exploded. The propane tank blew up! The building is gone! It's gone, lady. The explosion leveled the Little General store, propelling building fragments in all directions.

The propane tanks landed more than 50 feet away. The two technicians, the Fire Chief and the EMT standing near the leaking tank were struck by flying debris and killed. The four-store employees and the other firefighters survived, but they sustained serious burns and other injuries. The EMT who had been directing traffic survived with an arm injury. The liquid withdrawal valve on the propane tank is very rarely used. It is designed to enable propane companies to actually empty the tank of its contents. The special agency extensive testing and examination of the liquid withdrawal valve from the tank in Ghent.

The special CSB team investigators concluded that a manufacturing defect, two decades earlier, likely caused the valve to jam permanently in the open position. Only the safety plug had been preventing liquid propane from escaping.

The CSB was able to section the valve so we can take a look at the interior mechanism and workings of this valve. And found that the hole drilled through this lower guide was too small for the stem to move freely. The valve was stuck in the open position, propane was likely released through the Tell-tale hole when the unsupervised junior technician, who had received no formal training, began removing the safety plug.

   

The investigation CSB team identified following a gap in the system.

·         The CSB team found that the propane technician working on the tank was not trained in the standard procedures for the job tasks that he was doing and that he likely removed the plug without checking the hole for a propane leak. He had only been on the job for a month and a half.  The propane industry's primary training tool is the Certified Employee Training Program or CETP.It was developed by the Propane Education and Research Council, which was established by Congress in 1996. The training cautions technicians to unscrew the safety plug partway and then check the tell-tale hole for escaping propane for at least 30 seconds. The training emphasizes "if in doubt, do not remove the closing cap."But the junior technician had never received any formal industry training. The CSB team recommended that all propane technicians must impart the proper training and they must have the required qualification and also their competency must be validated.

The CSB investigation team found that the propane industry-standard training program covers all of the routine tasks that you would expect a propane technician to perform. However, this training did not cover any emergency tasks and did not cover what a propane Technician should do in the case of an emergency.

On the day of the accident, neither of the propane technicians evacuated the area of the cloud, nor did they instruct others to do so.

The first priority in responding to a propane emergency is to get people out of harm's way, to evacuate the area and make sure people are safe and not in an area where they could be injured by a fire or explosion.

The CSB noted that propane technicians are frequently called upon to assist firefighters in responding to propane emergencies. The propane technicians are a very valuable part, a very, very big asset to us in this situation.

The CSB recommended that the Propane Education and Research Council revise the industry training program to include emergency response guidance for propane technicians. The training should emphasize the need to evacuate the scene of a release, until the hazards are fully understood. And the Council should develop safe procedures for transferring propane between tanks or prohibit such transfers.

·           The Audit findings must comply. The CSB team also found that the propane tank was not installed 10 feet away from the building. The tank was located directly under the roof vents, providing a direct path for the propane gas to enter the building.OSHA regulations and the West Virginia State Fire Code both require that 500-gallon propane tanks be located at least ten feet away from buildings. But for more than a decade, Ferrell gas personnel had allowed the propane tank to remain directly against the back wall of the Little General store, even as they refilled the tank more than 100 times since it was initially installed.

·         The CSB team interviewed many delivery and service personnel who worked on this tank. All of them were well-aware of the ten-foot separation requirement and all of them were aware that this tank was in violation of that separation requirement, but none of them had reported the unsafe placement of this tank to their managers. Drivers told CSB investigators they believed the tank location had been approved, possibly under a variance from current rules, but there was no variance. Although Ferrell gas had twice inspected the propane system at the Little General store in 2000, the tank was never relocated. The CSB recommended that Ferrell gas establish an improved auditing system and an inspection program for propane systems based on the requirements of the National Fire Code for propane.

·         The lesson on this is that that fire departments, big and small, need to train on a regular basis on dealing with the hazards of a propane release and realize that, that the potential for an explosion here is, is very significant. And when an explosion occurs, it can have catastrophic consequences. Guidance for emergency responders recommends evacuation as the first task in a hazardous materials emergency. However, the Fire Captain's final direction, make sure everybody is out, came too late. Moments later, the store exploded.

o   The CSB investigation found that firefighters in West Virginia are only required to receive four hours of hazardous materials training when they begin their careers as emergency responders. That training directs firefighters to take only defensive actions when responding to a hazardous materials incident and to follow the instructions found in the Department of Transportation's Emergency Response Guidebook.The Guidebook directs responders to evacuate the area around all propane releases to a radius of 330 feet. For major propane leaks, evacuations should be extended to about a half-mile downwind from the incident site.

·         The CSB determined that the Fire Captain had last attended West Virginia's hazardous materials response course in 1998, nine years prior to the accident. No refresher training was required. When people are trained to perform a task and they don't perform that task, their knowledge deteriorates over time. And so refresher training is very important to keep that knowledge current so that they understand the appropriate actions to take in an emergency. If you see that vapor cloud and you hear it and you smell it, you need to be leaving it alone and you need to evacuate the area. We take the vow to protect life and property; life comes first. Let the property go to save those lives.

·         The CSB recommended that West Virginia require annual hazardous materials training for all firefighters and EMTs in the state. The Board also called on the State Fire Commission to require that all West Virginia fire departments perform at least one hazardous materials response drill each year. It's very important that the State of West Virginia grab this bull by the horns, as you might say, and push this training out to their firefighters.

·         The CSB determined that the junior propane technician had called control room from the Little General store at 10:40 a.m. Thirteen minutes Prior to the explosion, but he and the control room operator did not exchange important information about the magnitude of the release or the potential danger to any people in the area. The only information the control room operator relayed to the fire department was the address and the report of a propane leak. Well, control room operators in the United States use sets of guide cards, sort of a question and answer, some pre-arrival instructions to the caller.

·         The investigation team found that there is no guide card specific to propane. If a propane card existed, control room operators certainly could have asked some critical questions about the nature of the release, where the release was occurring, if, if propane was getting into a building and if people were being exposed. Answers to those questions might have led to different emergency response actions at the Little General store. Instead, responders drove directly into the area and the store employees and propane technicians remained in the danger zone.  The lessons to be learned, from this incident, is any time that a call goes into a control room center, for them to relay the questions to a person calling in, to get that information, to discern what exactly is the situation.You know, do I have a small propane leak coming from my grill or do I have a 500 pounder that's, that's blowing and you know, completely out of control?

·         The CSB recommended that the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials develop a new emergency guide card for propane to assist control room operators. And the Board urged the West Virginia E911 Council to distribute guidance about propane emergencies to all control room call centers in the state.

The three causes of this accident were one,

1.                   Ferrell gas did not identify the hazard of the tank location or correct it.

2.                  Two, Appalachian Heating did not train the propane technician and allowed him to work alone on the day of the incident.

3.                  And three, the propane technicians and emergency responders were not trained to evacuate the area immediately upon a propane release.

I think from the above incident it must be understand how effective not only training but competence assurance of the employees are so much important. It will definitely help to improve the productivity but also help to save time and cost which is very much essential to sustain the business.