PAINTSQUARE BLOG

Led by the oil and gas majors, many job ads for coating inspectors now specify NACE Level 3 certification.

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the case of coating failures on mega-projects.

Are certifying bodies being less than diligent in verifying job experience before certification?

Certification and experience work best together when inspections are on the line.

All the paper credentials in the world will not help much if you lack the practical experience that helps you apply the learned knowledge.

The oil companies have saturated the industry with Level 3 inspectors, leaving little demand for the guys with perhaps more experience but fewer paper credentials.

Comment from Simon Hope, (1/5/2015, 5:50 AM)

Good article Lee, it is the usual grind on in some respects but until people listen and take due heed to the warnings, we will continue to have an industry with little respect. Experience is great as long as the correct information has been acted on from the beginning and that lessons learned have been responded to correctly rather than just plough on and make the same old mistakes. As you are well aware there are plenty of gross misconceptions and old wives tales out there!! As for Mr Big Oil, hopefully he will get a few more people to work for him who actually know what they are doing rather than, in the true 'empty vessel' mode that many of the current crop of experts adopt (ie making a lot of incoherent and useless noise about things that they shouldn't be commenting on)and start to bring in sound technical lead and proposals. This then leads to sound controls on the workface along with auditable quality as the people needed will not be able to just hide behind useless scraps of paper blowing in the wind. As you rightly say, it is a combination of proper experience and high quality training that are needed to produce the type of people the industry needs, a five day wonder course on its own will never be the answer and 'cheating' by individuals and certifying authorities help no one nor improve credibility. 35+ years in the industry have left me sceptical and disillusioned to the extent that I have approximately zero confidence in certifying systems for inspection engineers and trust is only built on observation of the individuals to determine whether they can actually do the job for myself. To date the knowledge and ability seems to be sadly lacking or misguided! Too long on the soap box! What are we going to do? This question never seems to get a satisfactory answer!

Comment from Warren Brand, (1/5/2015, 8:50 AM)

Great article, Lee. Being a NACE 3 or SSPC PCI 3 is great, but, exactly as you've pointed out, it does not a competent inspector make. Also, as you pointed out, demand is turning inspection services into a commodity, like flour, butter, gasoline or other undifferentiated product or service. We rarely bid on inspection services if a client is looking for three or four quotes. We only uses seasoned inspectors - for obvious reasons - which are typically more costly. In fact, one of our top inspector has more than 30 years of inspection experience, is a chemist by trade, and has no affiliation with NACE or SSPC - and I would stack him up against any NACE 3 or PCI 3.

Comment from David Reynolds, (1/5/2015, 10:52 AM)

Thorough coverage and discussion of an important area - not only to coatings, but to related areas. Thanks! An approach that may be helpful comes from IFMA, the International Facility Management Association. The top level credential, Certified Facility Manager (CFM) requires appropriate, documented, demonstrable experience, recommendations, and an examination. While other commonly encountered IFMA credentials are knowledge based, and the required tests reflect this, the CFM written exam is said to be competency based. I took (and passed), the CFM last year, after a decade of varied facility management work. It was unlike any previous exam I'd encountered (or given, as a college instructor) in any engineering or technical discipline. While at least a few of the possible responses in many of the questions were feasible and nominally correct, the right choice, I speculate, arose from choosing the one most likely to bring progress in the situation posed. Although I studied intensively for the exam, and could not have passed without doing so, many of the questions came down to making an expeditious choice based on what felt like a guess - well, an informed guess. IFMA has an ongoing process for validating and updating the CFM exam, using both staff and practicing CFMs. I do not know how the group arrives at exam questions, but they seem to have effective methods of doing so. I no longer doubt their claim in any case. I cannot recall another exam where I could not answer out of factual knowledge, discover the deciding factor, or make a calculation, to reach a clear choice. My practical experience in the profession must have figured significantly - just as should apply with project critical inspection practice.

Comment from peter gibson, (1/5/2015, 12:42 PM)

Like for any profession...a credential does not deliver competence. One must have the theory with the practical experience.Today,society is hoodwinked by a piece of paper.Very problematic.

Comment from Alan Nesbitt, (1/9/2015, 2:43 AM)

Hi Lee, See it everyday Men trying to run before they can walk and trying to fast track through the courses,the majority I know personally and they have very limited experience but as you say they need that bit of paper, time will prove you right and sadly the old statement of Lions being lead by Donkeys will become more of a norm.

Comment from Jennifer Morse, (1/9/2015, 7:39 PM)

Hi Lee, Outstanding blog, and comments from everyone. I work for a large corporation that contracts many coating inspectors, and in some cases inspectors who also look at coatings, across North America. The real criteria to select the good inspectors includes training, experience and common sense. However the people who contract these inspectors know nothing of coatings, and providing them a comprehensive list of what to look for on a resume is difficult at best. Training only establishes they were in class and passed the tests. Experience, when listed on the resume truthfully, can mean real learning or simply being present with no learning. Common sense is not quantifiable for a checklist of inspector qualities. I have issues with both NACE and SSPC inspection programs, but see no better option than to continue attempted influencing for improvement. In the meantime, I will have to write company specifications for paint/coating/lining inspection because we cannot continue to afford the major failures of NACE certified inspectors that we have seen in the last few years. Even this will not solve all the problems, but should at least improve accountability and reporting.

Comment from Alan Nesbitt, (1/12/2015, 1:50 AM)

Hi Jennifer, Confusious alledgedly said "Common sense, not so common" excellent comment.

Comment from George Moonen, (1/13/2015, 3:37 AM)

Life would be so easy if "common sense" could certified...

Comment from Lee Wilson, (1/15/2015, 11:34 AM)

Common sense is a very rare commodity excellent comments though

Comment from Michael Baase, (1/16/2015, 2:32 PM)

As a lead representative for a major asset owner, this post, brought to my attention by my colleagues, warrants some level of comment. While reading through the original Blog and the subsequent posts, I saw many aspects I can agree on and relate to. In particular, mentions of the importance of common sense, the undervaluation of experience and the unfortunate instances of certified inspection personnel falling short of expectations. I’m not aware of any certifying organization that is also in the third party consulting business. Perhaps, I’m naive in this, but my understanding is that both NACE and SSPC were born out of industry needs to help provide some levels of consistency, standards and assistance to owner bodies, not to provide guarantees that either individuals or businesses certified by them would perform in some angelic way and be the end all for an industry plagued by a lack of understanding from people that are directly tasked with utilizing the products of this industry. It is incumbent upon user organizations to take responsibility for the oversight of their projects, including the hiring and constant evaluation of inspection personnel of any level whether in-house or through third party consultant firms. Simply put, if you don’t know what is going on, on your job, and you are not keeping an eye on the whole process, then shame on you. Don’t pass the buck. We require NACE or SSPC certification and certain levels of experience for our in house personnel, third party inspection services and contractor’s QC inspection personnel. The certifications are the first filter we use to determine whether or not we will even consider utilizing personnel on projects. Certification confirmation is followed by a requirement for certain amounts of experience (job duty dependent - that we try and verify) on our type of projects. Our next line of defense is having in-house personnel that oversee all projects and are hands on during spot inspections to further ensure that inspections and contract administration are being performed up to our expectations (this could also be done through consultants). Ultimately, we are responsible for the outcome of our projects. We have had many successes and some failures, which we learn from and modify how we work to minimize the chance of failures repeating. The other side, of this that I have not seen mentioned as of yet, is that while the coatings industry as a whole is large, most of the different subsets of the industry are fairly small. Most of us are focused on one or only a few different industries and these are relatively small communities. What is immensely important and not being considered, is that in this industry, you live and die by your reputation. Those that are bad performers, usually are found out, and in short order have nowhere to go. My advice to my fellows in our industry; it’s easy to find problems, that is after all what we are paid for. Take ownership and when you find a problem, have at least one solution to that problem before you point it out and assess blame.

Join the Conversation: