ELECTRICIANS IN 1.5 DAYS

[jimbo123]

My employer sent 3 workers from our maintenance shop to a electrical safety course that lasted a day and a half . Included in the course was a area where they went to use a voltage tester to check for power and to see if the fuse were good. That is all the hands on electrical training they received there. They all got ppe there too. Now they are doing pm on all our motors .
To me this seem wrong but don,t know how to bring this up. It doesn't seem right that in a day and a half they are electricians. What does osher say? Anyone know.

 

[kwired]

My employer sent 3 workers from our maintenance shop to a electrical safety course that lasted a day and a half . Included in the course was a area where they went to use a voltage tester to check for power and to see if the fuse were good. That is all the hands on electrical training they received there. They all got ppe there too. Now they are doing pm on all our motors .
To me this seem wrong but don,t know how to bring this up. It doesn't seem right that in a day and a half they are electricians. What does osher say? Anyone know.

I don't see that doing PM on a motor is necessarily "electrician" work either. Safe electrical work practices are still necessary to do this task though. But I also say the term "electrician" is a pretty generic term.

 

[petersonra]

you can teach people to safely do stuff they already know how to do pretty quickly.

a lot of maint guys are much better than the typical electrician at figuring out why things are not working.

teaching them to do it safely is probably all the class is really doing and a day and a half sounds like plenty of time to learn how to safely do some limited things like checking motors.

 

[hurk27]

Typical CYA training to make OSHA happy and so they can say if something happens that they were trained so its their fault not the companys, these classes are not going to teach all the theory required to know in the electrical world, it just most likely about how to be safe so they can have an out in the eyes of OSHA if something happens.

Sad but true at many companys.

 

[petersonra]

Typical CYA training to make OSHA happy and so they can say if something happens that they were trained so its their fault not the companys, these classes are not going to teach all the theory required to know in the electrical world, it just most likely about how to be safe so they can have an out in the eyes of OSHA if something happens.

Sad but true at many companys.

I don't see anything sad about it at all. These guys probably already know enough theory to do the work. Now they just need to know how to do it safely and that is pretty straightforward.

 

[jumper]

I don't see anything sad about it at all. These guys probably already know enough theory to do the work. Now they just need to know how to do it safely and that is pretty straightforward.

I agree in part.

Training a person for a limited scope of scope of work on a specific piece(s) of equipment is not that complicated.

That does not mean the person is an electrician, knows electrical theory or can apply that knowledge to another job.

It just means that person is now (hopefully) qualified to do that task.

I do this "mentoring"/training on a weekly basis.

 

[petersonra]

This seems like a good example of appropriate training for specific tasks to me.

They are not electricians and no one said they were.

Why in the world would someone need to be an electrician to do this kind of thing?

 

[kwired]

This seems like a good example of appropriate training for specific tasks to me.

They are not electricians and no one said they were.

Why in the world would someone need to be an electrician to do this kind of thing?

Exactly, OP said these guys were doing PM on motors, did not say they were installing branch circuits and feeders to the motors.

 

[jimbo123]

I don't believe you learn to megg a motor and understand your readings that quick . Maybe I am wrong .

 

[Smart $]

I don't believe you learn to megg a motor and understand your readings that quick . Maybe I am wrong .

When you're not working under a trade, craft, or similar documented agreement, there is nothing to protect who does what work. Being considered qualified per OSHA helps very little in this regard.

 

[kwired]

I don't believe you learn to megg a motor and understand your readings that quick . Maybe I am wrong .

Measuring and recording the readings is not the same thing as analyzing what they mean either. The guy that analyzes the readings may be very good at that but not so good at following PPE requirements.

 

[petersonra]

I don't believe you learn to megg a motor and understand your readings that quick . Maybe I am wrong .

We are not talking rocket science. You could write a safe procedure to do the testing in a page and another page to understand it.

I think you are trying to make way too much out of this.

I understand your desire to protect your position from poaching by other trades but that ship has long ago sailed. It is just not practical for the guy maintaining equipment to call for an electrician every time he has to touch a wire. And it is not necessary either.

 

[jimbo123]

Point is that I personally don't think you are qualifiy to do this work after a short time in class and no work out in the plant being trained how to do the work. I always believed a person or company had to document this training, this you don't learn in class.

 

[kwired]

Point is that I personally don't think you are qualifiy to do this work after a short time in class and no work out in the plant being trained how to do the work. I always believed a person or company had to document this training, this you don't learn in class.

You said in OP these were workers from the maintenance shop. I'm guessing they were not totally inexperienced when it comes to motors. The training they took was for electrical safety - possibly covering LOTO, and testing for voltage to ensure equipment is safe to work on. Then you said they now are doing motor PM. Possibly tasks they have done before.

I understand that going to the safety class does not make them electricians. I also do not think motor PM is strictly an electrician's job. There are some people that call themselves electricians that wouldn't have a clue of what to do for this motor PM without some assistance first time or so.

These guys probably have mechanical experience so checking bearings, lubrication, etc. are nothing new to them. Not much else left with most motors for PM except for insulation testing, which likely was not the topic of the safety class, but is not really that difficult to learn to do. Like I said earlier, interpreting the results of the test may take a little more training, but performing the tests is not that difficult to learn.

 

[Luketrician]

IMO, it is more a likelyhood that they gave these guys just enough knowledge to be dangerous to themselves and others.

Hopefully I am wrong on this, but sometimes, even checking for presence of potential is not as easy as one would think...systems could be ungrounded, voltmeter may be set to the wrong range, and/or on hold...giving the "technician" a false reading, systems could be de-energized but could be in an "auto" position. Do they know how to look at a drawing and be confident that the LOTO established has provided that safe boundary needed? etc etc


Just too many variables that could put themselves and/or others in danger.

 

[kwired]

IMO, it is more a likelyhood that they gave these guys just enough knowledge to be dangerous to themselves and others.

Hopefully I am wrong on this, but sometimes, even checking for presence of potential is not as easy as one would think...systems could be ungrounded, voltmeter may be set to the wrong range, and/or on hold...giving the "technician" a false reading, systems could be de-energized but could be in an "auto" position. Do they know how to look at a drawing and be confident that the LOTO established has provided that safe boundary needed? etc etc


Just too many variables that could put themselves and/or others in danger.

We kind of have to assume they had some electrical knowledge in the first place otherwise why send them to such a class?

I would think the safety class primarily focused on application of 70E, and not how to read a meter, or understanding wiring installation/maintenance procedures.

 

[eHunter]

Point is that I personally don't think you are qualifiy to do this work after a short time in class and no work out in the plant being trained how to do the work. I always believed a person or company had to document this training, this you don't learn in class.

Is your facility all LV (<600VAC)?
Are there any MV circuits, motors and or other equipment?

 

[jimbo123]

all low voltage <600v. They have no experience with electricity at all before the class and never used meters before this . The company needed to have people for loto and now they are sent out for some other work, to answer your questions. If this is electrical safety as in 70e then I just think someone is wrong. Could be me.

 

[kwired]

all low voltage <600v. They have no experience with electricity at all before the class and never used meters before this . The company needed to have people for loto and now they are sent out for some other work, to answer your questions. If this is electrical safety as in 70e then I just think someone is wrong. Could be me.

If they have no electrical experience then I can see things from your perspective. Until now you really didn't tell us just what kind of experience they may have, just said they were maintenance people, which generally means they may normally do some electrical work, but not always. Sometimes they are asked to do more than they should, which management in your case apparently thinks electrical safety training also makes qualified electrical workers.

 

[jumper]

If they have no electrical experience then I can see things from your perspective. Until now you really didn't tell us just what kind of experience they may have, just said they were maintenance people, which generally means they may normally do some electrical work, but not always. Sometimes they are asked to do more than they should, which management in your case apparently thinks electrical safety training also makes qualified electrical workers.

Yeah, I was assuming these guys were at least qualified mech techs that were being given additional guidance/training for specific tasks, not janitors and such.