Certification of Piping

Designer Skills

William G. Beazley Ph.D.,President, Information Assets, Inc.

(retired SPED Executive Director)

July 21, 2016

Anchorage, AK

Piping Designers• About 100,000 worldwide

• Highly Paid

• Most Knowledge Acquired On The Job

(OJT)

• Aging Workforce

• New Hiring is Incremental: Training is

Deferred

• Credibility Through Experience

Society of Piping Engineers

and Designers (SPED)

• Established 1980 (36 Years Old!)

• Non-Profit Educational Technical Society

• Worldwide Membership

• Exclusively Serving Piping Professional

Target SPED Member

• Equally attractive to

Petrochemical Plant Engineer,

Constructor, Operator and

Maintainer

• Involved with Plant

Containment Integrity

Throughout Plant Life Cycle

– Front End Design, thru

– Decommissioning

SPED Individual Members:

Broader Areas Of Employment

Across the Plant Life Cycle

Process Design

Front-End Design

Detail Design

Plant Construction

Commis-sioning

Operations &

Maintenance

Decommis-sioning

Plant Life Cycle Phase

SPED Member

Employment

New

Members

Near Term

Members Long Term

Members

Categories of Membership

• Student (Non-Voting)

• Individual (Voting)

• Corporate (Voting through Individual

Memberships)

– Global (100 Individual Memberships)

– Large (8 Individual Memberships, One Country)

– Small (3 Individual Memberships, One Country)

– Academic Institution (8 Individual Memberships)

SPED Corporate Members:

Professional Piping

Designer

Certification

• Document Baseline

Skills

• Formal Body of

Knowledge

• Progressive Difficulty

Why Certification?

The Case for Designers

• Documents Skills & Competency

• Increased Employability at Higher Pay

• Improved Professional Recognition

• Clear Professional Development Path

Why Certification?

The Case for EPC Employers

• 3rd Party Verification of Employee

Skills & Competency

• Hiring Candidate Qualifier

• Competitive Advantage on Contracts

• Professional Development Guidelines

Why Certification?

The Case for Owner/Operators

• 3rd Party Verification of Resume Skills & Competency

• Contractor Differentiation

• Staffing Qualifier

• Indicator of Professional Commitment and Continuing Development

SPED Certification Program for

Professional Piping Designer1. Four Levels of PPD:

– Level I: Basic - Properly Trained for Routing Pipe

– Level II: Advanced - Organize, QA Work

– Level III: Senior - Equipment Layout for Quality Piping

– Level IV: Lead PPD - Manage, Estimate & Assure Full Scope Work

• Qualification through:– Testing

– Acceptable Experience

Professional Piping Designer

Level I• Route, support, verify pipe within an existing

layout of process equipment IAW:– Process Engineer’s P&ID

– Agreed piping specification

– Piping design standards

– Fabrication and erection methods

– Inspection and maintenance practices.

• Use both 2D & 3D representations/models

• Qualification through Testing or Acceptable Experience

Professional Piping Designer

Level II• Level I plus:

– 4 Years of Acceptable Experience

– Design Impact of start-up, shutdown, vs normal operation

– Information needed before work begins (P&IDs,etc.)

– Determine when work is complete, correct

– Properly manages versions and releases

– Properly extracts data as needed (BOMs, etc.)

• Qualification through Acceptable Experience

Professional Piping Designer

Level III• Level II plus:

• 8 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Space, layout and assure commonly used process

equipment, supporting structures, site infrastructure and facilities, IAW:

• Process Engineer’s P&ID,

• Equipment spacing standards,

• Fabrication and erection methods

• Inspection and maintenance practices.

– Document correctly on appropriate representation

• Qualification through Testing and Acceptable Experience

Professional Piping Designer

Level IV• Level III plus:

• 12 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Assess in others the skills listed for Level I, II and III

• Demonstrated ability to :

• Bid man hours on limited information.

• Document Client Requirements

• Staffing, Resourcing Projects.

• Establish Schedules & Manage Change

• Qualification through Training and/or Acceptable Experience

PPD Promotion and Promulgation

• Over 1,000 Certified

on 4 Continents

• About 150 PPD

Certified Each Year

• Outreach to

Professional and

Software User

Group Meetings

• New 100% Club

PPD 100% Club• New Initiative for CM’s

• CM Pledges to Get

Pipers PPD Certified

within One Year.

• Gets Free Training

Resources and Help

SPED Course Offerings

• PPD BootCamp– Targets New, CAD Designers

– Fundamentals of Piping Routing and Layout

• Process Plant Layout– Targets Experienced Designers

– O&M Considerations in Layout & Piping

• PPD Certification Reviews

Components of a Typical Pump Suction

and Discharge Piping System(Source: Bausebacher and Hunt)

• Discharge Gate Valve

• Check Valve

• Eccentric Reducer (Flat on Top)

• Concentric Reducer

• Pressure Gauge

• Temporary Strainer

• Suction Gate Valve

• Straight Run

• Casing Vent

• Casing Drain

Typical Topic

SPED Videos• Piper BootCamp:

– Approx 20 hours of video of

voice over power point slides.

– Preparation for PPD Level III

• Process Plant Layout

– PPL Version 1: 66 hours of

video of live presentations

– PPL Version 2: Approx 20

hours of video of voice over

power point slides.

– Preparation for PPD Level III

2010 Online Training Courses

– Process Plant Layout• PPD Level III Exam

– PPD Piper BootCamp • PPD Level I Exam

– Based on the SPED Piper Video Series• PPL Video Course – Upgraded

– PPL V 1.0 & New PPL V 2.0

• Piper BootCamp Video Course

SPED RP-001

• Recommended Practice for Assessing

Piping Designer Baseline Skills and

Competencies

• Controlling Document for Certification

• Implementable by all Trainers,

Employers, Educators, etc.

Levels of

Competence

Future – Badges for Specific Skills

• Digital Credentials for Specific, Targeted

Skills• Think Boy Scout Merit Badges

• More than PDFs of Certificates

• Portable (Backpacks)

• Relatively Self-Documenting, Self-Verifying

– Badges tells where to verify itself

– Contains:

• Skill Description

• Evidence

Digital Credential Advantages• Owned by the user

– Can be sent to employer

– Motivates Learning

• Harder to Forge

– Baked by Issuer

– Issued to Earner

– Displayed by “Displayer”

– Confirmed by “Issuer” (at least in Moodle)

How PDU Uses Badges and Why• Already had the videos and PPT Notes

• 173 total subtopics (following user’s preferences)

• PPT Subtopics not with separate objectives– 15-45 Minutes,

– Often used for Lunch and Learn

• PIPINGDESIGNU.COM– Subscription business model

– Some video trainers use course business model

• Badges Suited to Subscription Site– Engagement is the key to long subscriptions

– Badges are self-rewarding credential

– Many subtopics favor mini-credentials

– Experience shows users pick topics of immediate interest

Business Model: Course vs Subscription

Course Model

• Goal: Completion

• Design: Sequential

• Good For: Body of Knowledge

• Credential: Certifications, Degrees

Subscription

Model• Goal: Subscriber Retention

• Design: Non-Sequential

• Good For: OJT, JIT Skills

• Credential: Mini-Credentials

118 Badges Defined

(21 July 2016)

For More Information:

www.spedweb.com

Contact:

Catherine Van der Walt

Operations Manager

Society of Piping Engineers and Designers

9668 Westheimer Road

Suite 200-242

Houston, Texas 77063

713 960 4478

catherine_van_der_walt@spedweb.com

http://www.spedweb.com/

Questions?

Discussion

Video Licensing Options

• Single Country

– Unlimited Copy/Access within Country

• Global Licensing

– Unlimited Copy/Access within Corp Family

– Requires Global Corporate Membership

– Update Options Available

• Security Requirements: Reasonable

control of access to Videos.

New Training Initiatives:

Green Process Piping

New Training Initiatives: Process

Technology Labs for Pipers

SPED Blogs

• spedcanada.pipingdesign.com

• spedeurope.wordpress.com

• SPED Group Members on linkedin.com

• www.spedweb.com (members only)

• Planned:

– professionalpipingdesigner.com

– SPED Asia

SPED Chapter Rules

• Few rules as possible

• Promote local member interests and

professional development.

• Must be locally led

• Conform only to SPED Objectives, Standards

and Integrity

• Funded by dues rebate plus chapter dues.

• Meet at local firms, suppliers, vendors, etc.

And What About This?(Source: Howard F. Rase)

Piping Design for Process Plants

What Can Companies Do To

Help?

• Endorse PPD Certification

• Review and Comment on Certification Criteria

• Sell Certification Inside Your Organization

• Become Certified

• Ask for Certification in RFPs & Job Postings

• Become a Sponsor