Stop complaining, start training

And it doesn't cost anything to find and train these valuable individuals because the government foots the bill for everything.

Of course, there is often significant red tape associated with these government subsidies and this is probably one of the reasons why more companies aren't using this golden opportunity - but we've got around that by handling all the red tape, accreditation, etc. for any company who is interested. We've had to streamline the process because EOH takes in 300 school leavers and 300 graduates every year as part of its job-creation initiative, so we've created a team of people who are well versed with all the intricacies of the process, freeing the rest of us to do our job of imparting knowledge.

It's important to note that these 600 students recognise that they have been given a rare opportunity and, as a consequence, they show a high degree of seriousness about not wasting it.

Valuable practical skills

During their learnerships (school leavers) and internships (graduates), students learn valuable practical skills, which, in our case, focus on business IT and industrial IT. This prepares them for the real world and forms an important part of their CVs. What's more, having had their first job, they find it a lot easier to find another and soon realise that education is the key to a bigger pay cheque.

During the past financial year, the EOH group spent nearly R22 million on skills development as we believe that government alone cannot shoulder the responsibility of job creation. Business has the capacity to do more and unemployment poses a major business risk. We are working with our top-300 customers and business partners to devise ways and means of creating more jobs and to develop and train young people. EOH is also working with existing government departments to mobilise existing and new job-creation initiatives.

Today, the novice's journey to proficiency is certainly very different to what it used to be and they need all the help they can get. Many present-day control room operators, for example, are mature people who have come up through the ranks and have had exposure to most aspects of the shop floor, which has given them a depth of understanding of the company's production processes over the decades they've been with the company. But someone who today starts off as a technician, say, rarely stays with the company for decades and so tends to stick in the technical field with the result that he most probably will not rise to the rank of supervisor. The result is that operators are trained for a career as operators.

On-the- job simulator training

That training starts with teaching them about the processes they'll be supervising and what to do under various conditions. But this is rarely good enough when they actually have to control those same processes for real. Like all of us, they can make mistakes, some of which can have serious safety or monetary consequences. One reason for these mistakes is that they simply don't have the experience necessary to deal with all the various problems they'll have to face. This is why I believe that on-the- job simulator training has become such an important issue.

Presently, there is no way that a pilot can retain his commercial licence or switch from one aircraft type to another without many hours of simulator training. Yet, we put people in charge of huge, expensive plants and dangerous processes with a smattering of academic education and the fervent hope that they'll cope.

It's time that the mining and manufacturing industries follow the lead of the aircraft industry and start using simulators to train their operational personnel properly (at all levels). The petrochemical industry has been doing just that for years because of the hazardous nature of their operations. Bringing simulator training to the shop floor isn't because the plant is likely to explode or poison the surrounding population (although that's not always strictly true), but because lack of knowledge on how to handle situations goes hand-in-hand with lack of production due to unnecessary stoppages.

It's not as if we don't have the tools to do a good job of educating our wealth-creating personnel. From the Invensys stable alone we have the suite of simulator solutions from SimSci-Esscor, which can simulate any eventuality in any plant. Then there's ArchestrA Workflow, which provides scripted scenarios for responding to various situations, while IntelaTrac provides guidance and instructions to mobile personnel on how to handle events from routine maintenance to emergencies. Of course, there's always software solutions such as intelligent HMIs, trending tools, Statistical Process Control, Artificial Intelligence Neural Networks and others that have been designed to mitigate surprises, but none of these can measure up to a well-informed, situation-aware human when it comes to dealing with the unexpected.

It's quite predictable that simulator training for industry will become the norm rather than remain the exception. The technology for this is nowhere as complicated as flight simulation and has become very cost-effective - especially when compared to what can happen as a result of decisions taken by ill-informed or insufficiently trained personnel.

So, what have we got? A government with deep pockets that pays for all skills training, a wealth of technologies and expertise to provide some of the best training in the world and the potential of retaining much-needed jobs in South Africa. In my mind, there's nothing much left to complain about.