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Knowing our limitations as you
do, and the projected service life
of this class, what will happen to
the techo's trained up here as far
as the new qualifications go and
their application?
I hope the new job is treating you
well
All the Best
ABMT Emma Conway
HMAS KANIMBLA
20/04/03
Reply to AB Conway’s Letter
from MT Category Sponsor
Dear Emma
Good to hear from you and
thanks for reading our article and
taking the time to provide
feedback.
Your query has highlighted one of
the more interesting challenges
facing implementation of the
changes currently facing the MT
Category. As you well know, the
LPA class has a significant
manual operator requirement in
managing their engineering plant.
While initiatives to reduce the
amount of personnel in the
engineering watch in LPA are
currently under consideration, as
you will no doubt realise
automation of the LPA
Engineering plant is a daunting
prospect which would be
extremely time consuming and
costly. There are no firm plans at
this stage to introduce any
significant level of extra
automation to the LPA class
Engineering plant, therefore the
immediate benefits inherent in
the new watchkeeping
qualifications may be difficult to
completely realise in LPA. We do
not, however, wish to hold back
those Ships with automated
control and monitoring systems
simply because it's difficult to
implement these changes to their
full extent in some of the older,
less automated Ships. We need
to get these practices and
qualifications in place now,
before the fully automated
engineering plants expected in
future Ships arrive.
From an LPA perspective,
technicians who have gained their
qualifications in LPA and
subsequently move to a more
automated platform will be
required to have their
qualifications endorsed on their
new Ship. This is current practice
so nothing new or unexpected
here, however there are initiatives
to make this transition
considerably easier. By this I
mean the shifting of operator
training from being mainly
conducted onboard by Ship's
Staff, to simulators and formal
courses in Ship specific trainers
like the FFG Trainer at GI and the
ANZAC Console simulator, (soon
to relocate to Stirling). The
operator qualification courses for
these two classes are currently
being developed, meaning MT
sailors will soon complete most
of their operator based training
ashore before joining the Ship,
and will only be required to
consolidate that qualification
onboard, not learn it from
scratch. This should serve to
increase the achievement rate of
operator quals and provide a
simpler, more structured process
for sailors to follow in obtaining
them.
I hope the above answers your
question, please don't hesitate to
contact me again if you have any
further queries.
Cheers Richo.
Letter To The Editor – POMTE
Mark Davis
Sir,
Just a few thoughts and
questions I'd like to discuss
regarding recent (to me) topics. I
have just received the proposed
mentoring in the RAN summary
and been surprised to see that it
NAVY ENGINEERING BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2003
clearly identifies a short fall in
competency based training.
Appreciating that this is a well
known fact and that there is this
wonderful proposal to aid in
training personnel, I can't help
myself from peering into this with
a logical perspective. I wonder
how personnel can be released
from their current workplace to
attend when we are struggling to
make ends meet with personnel
as it is let alone release them for
advancement courses and
ASTC' 5s?
My personal belief is that we are
training operators rather than
maintainers and the fact is, we
are not taking the time to train
basic generic trade skills. The ITT 6
trained junior sailors of today do
18 months at HMAS CERBERUS
in category training and from
there on they don't touch any
tools in a training environment
again. This was evident when I
went to do my LSATT 7 and
POATT 8. I believe the ITT blokes
are being fast tracked into middle
management and along the way
they are missing the basic
knowledge that enables them to
advise their subordinates. I have
raised these concerns via
feedback forms and a brief
roadshow that was conducted
while I was in training at Training
Centre East for the above courses
however, the feedback was well
received but changes are not in
place.
I believe we may introduce
negative results by placing our
personnel in civilian workplaces
as there are already enough
advertisements luring sailors into
civilian industry. There are a
number of ex sailors working on
Cairns based ships as contractors
and they all encourage juniors to
pay off as the pay is better (I
don't understand that part) and
conditions are great. The fact is
that our personnel do hold
valuable knowledge and skills
and the civilian industry
supporting our ships need our
personnel and their experience.
For that they are prepared to pay
good money.
Just some thoughts, I'm hoping
you may be able to see a way
around this but the bottom line
remains when you see it from a
supply and demand perspective.
Regards,
POMT(E) Mark Davis
I/C High Power
Planned Maintenance
Co ordinator
HS White Crew in HMAS
LEEUWIN
By MT Category Sponsor – PO
Davis’ letter refers to the
mentoring project established for
Submarine technical sailors which
is the subject of an article
included in this edition.
There are currently a number of
initiatives being examined or in
varying stages of development,
which may address many of the
concerns expressed above.
5 ASTC – Applied Skills and Technology
Course (Ed)
6 ITT – Initial Technical Training (Ed)
7 LSATT – Leading Seaman Advanced
Technical Training (Ed)
8 POATT – Petty Officer Advanced Technical
Training (Ed).
7