Industry partners for training centre

A new occupational health and safety training centre has opened in Bibra Lake, through a joint venture between oil and gas and engineering companies.

The centre, which is now operational, will offer standardised one-day induction courses using real equipment.  

It will be operated by Induction Centres Australia, a registered training organisation set up by Transfield Worley, which is a joint venture between Transfield Services and WorleyParsons.

Other companies in the mining and oil and gas sectors have provided foundation support, including Woodside, BHP Billiton, BP, Mobil, CSBP, Caltex and Shell.

In total, the organisation has funds to establish 15 centres nationally.

ICA operations manager Corey Hannan said industry had felt that the quality of safety training was generally inadequate, and needed to imitate real-life scenarios to a greater degree.

“As far as health and safety education goes, the level of training is very average, considering the industry we’re in,” he said.

The ICA centre will offer 25 different modules in hands-on training, to be delivered by North Lake-based risk management consultancy IFAP.

Participants in the course will receive an electronic safety passport card, which is valid at all of the participating companies, as well as a ‘blue card’ for construction safety awareness that is accepted industry-wide.

The training will be conducted on operational equipment situated around a central plant.

Each course has a capacity of 12 people, with three courses able to be run per day.

Mr Hannan said the centre would ultimately aim to train all of WA’s mine site employees.

“At the moment, we have the capacity to train 150 people per week,” he said.

“As it grows, there will be more companies wanting to buy in, and as they buy in we may have to build another centre.”

Mr Hannan said ICA was considering another centre in the northern suburbs.

Currently, the organisation plans to open a further eight centres, including one in Karratha, as well as international offices in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Qatar.

These offices will service local companies as well as the founding companies that have operations overseas.

Mr Hannan said a centre in Gladstone was expected to open in March next year, and would be followed by Qatar.

ICA is also in discussions with Exxon-Mobil regarding funding for the Singapore and Kuala Lumpur centres.

The concept for the induction centre emerged from a presentation to a best practice forum hosted by WorleyParsons and Transfield.

It was initially trialed in New Zealand, before a pilot centre was established in Kwinana in 2006.

The training will be delivered by IFAP, which has also been involved in ensuring the course is accredited.

ICA, which is a not-for-profit entity, was set up in 2004 as a vehicle for the induction centres.