Success – It’s yours for the taking.

Success – It’s yours for the taking.

Success – It’s yours for the taking.

A SUCCESS STORY FROM WILKINSON COUTTS

ONWARDS AND UPWARDS: Inspection surveyor to refinery in-service inspector

We all like to hear success stories from people in the Integrity Industry. We hear from many of our delegates who have made the move to sunnier climes like Australia and Trinidad and Tobago having completed API training. But even if you are not a sun worshiper there are many great roles closer to home.   Here’s an example from one of our training delegates.

A fabrication welder, aged 34, retrained as an in-service plant ‘insurance’ surveyor for a third-party inspection company. After just a year, he told us that the job had become very repetitive. Weekly travel rose to 800 miles, driving from site to site, in fact, he spent more time driving than inspecting equipment (how many service-station sandwiches you can eat?). Watching his previous colleagues head offshore and onto refinery shutdowns, he had had enough and come to us for advice.

Plan your move

We made it clear that a move to an in-service inspection job in a refinery is as a big step. The equipment can be far more complex and dangerous.  Little encouragement was forthcoming from colleagues who (as well as enjoying inspecting coffee boilers) claimed that such a move was impossible as ‘refineries only employed hot-shot graduates.’ The world is of course full of such naysayers.

Go for it

The first step in moving up is to appreciate that more complex equipment is found in refineries. Coffee machine inspections become bottom of the list when there are heat exchangers, boilers, fractionator, reactor and cracker vessels to be dealt with. These suffer from a vast selection of damage mechanisms (60+ if you look in API RP 571) all of which influence the extent and type of inspection technique required. Training in these subjects gives you the first step on the ladder.

For the second step, this candidate needed an intermediate step first. This is fair enough – you can’t jump from the first step of a ladder to the top. Refineries will rarely recruit inspectors directly into their inspection department without first knowing if they have sufficient technical knowledge and experience – there is just too much risk involved. Often, but of course not always, they are more comfortable with someone who has worked on their site during shutdowns for a couple of years, where they have seen evidence of their ability and knowledge. Interest, experience and capability will shine through. Always. That’s how this transfer worked, just over 2 years from conception to completion, an initial direct-line contract position for a trial shutdown was followed by the offer of a full-time staff position.

Be prepared to learn

The result of the transfer was always predictable, lots to learn about the technical aspects of damage mechanisms and inspection techniques that had previously been hidden. Then there’s the longer hours and the requirement to make awkward decisions and justify them to others in the milieu of technical confrontations that make up refinery politics. Healthy salary though, with maybe some Fridays off, as long as there is not a shutdown on, that is.  The most humbling part of this story? It wasn’t the increased salary that the individual was most happy with, it was the new 20-minute commute each day and being home every night.

That’s just one story

Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal choice. If you want to progress you have to work on it.

If you are unsure of your next inspection role, speak to us and we can provide advice.