Water & Wastewater Treatment

34 | december 2014 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk In the know Skilling up: pipe networks Fire authorities too are keen to take advantage of calm network training. Poorly managed emergency use of standpipes can create bursts that cost millions to utilities and risk outing water supplies during critical fire incidents. A free online training course for occasional users of the network has just been launched and immediately taken up by contractor Amey, the first major contractor to see and experience the course. Supply UK Water Services can develop bespoke e-training calm network packages for organisations with specific in-house requirements. James Lawton of Amey commented, "The e-training Calm Networks Training package is a great way of educating our workforce and showing how we are effectively managing our clients' networks." By using a specialist organisation to run their calm network training, utilities, contractors and other licenced network operators can gain easy access to the most up- to-date expertise and equipment. Best practice can be shared within organisations, so that senior managers share their field teams' knowledge and expectations of operations best practice. Employees moving between organisations will relay the same calm network ethos, as will other users of utilities' networks. New staff can quickly access high quality, nationally accredited training, and organisations shed the burden of developing their calm networks training taking place on the Thames Water rig at Kempton Park own training programmes from scratch. A bespoke e-learning course can be made available for water supply companies whose network operators previously received the full practical training. The value of calm network e-training is that the refresher course - that operators need to undertake to maintain their certification - can be delivered in-house and for free. Calmer Network Training is a win- win for utilities and their customers – reducing leakage, improving water quality, preserving pipework and cutting costs. The benefit is on-going too, with best practice becoming embedded in those utilities and organisations that invest in routine training of water supply network operations staff. About the Author: roman boryslawskyj is a former operations manager in water supply and networks. He is now working with Supply UK on a consultancy basis to help deliver their training packages. "The financial squeeze on utilities means that costly reactive maintenance on damage caused by poor network management is not an option"

• Cover