Certification of Piping
Designer Skills
William G. Beazley Ph.D.,President, Information Assets, Inc.
(retired SPED Executive Director)
July 21, 2016
Anchorage, AK
Piping Designers• About 100,000 worldwide
• Highly Paid
• Most Knowledge Acquired On The Job
(OJT)
• Aging Workforce
• New Hiring is Incremental: Training is
Deferred
• Credibility Through Experience
Society of Piping Engineers
and Designers (SPED)
• Established 1980 (36 Years Old!)
• Non-Profit Educational Technical Society
• Worldwide Membership
• Exclusively Serving Piping Professional
Target SPED Member
• Equally attractive to
Petrochemical Plant Engineer,
Constructor, Operator and
Maintainer
• Involved with Plant
Containment Integrity
Throughout Plant Life Cycle
– Front End Design, thru
– Decommissioning
SPED Individual Members:
Broader Areas Of Employment
Across the Plant Life Cycle
Process Design
Front-End Design
Detail Design
Plant Construction
Commis-sioning
Operations &
Maintenance
Decommis-sioning
Plant Life Cycle Phase
SPED Member
Employment
New
Members
Near Term
Members Long Term
Members
Categories of Membership
• Student (Non-Voting)
• Individual (Voting)
• Corporate (Voting through Individual
Memberships)
– Global (100 Individual Memberships)
– Large (8 Individual Memberships, One Country)
– Small (3 Individual Memberships, One Country)
– Academic Institution (8 Individual Memberships)
SPED Corporate Members:
Professional Piping
Designer
Certification
• Document Baseline
Skills
• Formal Body of
Knowledge
• Progressive Difficulty
Why Certification?
The Case for Designers
• Documents Skills & Competency
• Increased Employability at Higher Pay
• Improved Professional Recognition
• Clear Professional Development Path
Why Certification?
The Case for EPC Employers
• 3rd Party Verification of Employee
Skills & Competency
• Hiring Candidate Qualifier
• Competitive Advantage on Contracts
• Professional Development Guidelines
Why Certification?
The Case for Owner/Operators
• 3rd Party Verification of Resume Skills & Competency
• Contractor Differentiation
• Staffing Qualifier
• Indicator of Professional Commitment and Continuing Development
SPED Certification Program for
Professional Piping Designer1. Four Levels of PPD:
– Level I: Basic - Properly Trained for Routing Pipe
– Level II: Advanced - Organize, QA Work
– Level III: Senior - Equipment Layout for Quality Piping
– Level IV: Lead PPD - Manage, Estimate & Assure Full Scope Work
• Qualification through:– Testing
– Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level I• Route, support, verify pipe within an existing
layout of process equipment IAW:– Process Engineer’s P&ID
– Agreed piping specification
– Piping design standards
– Fabrication and erection methods
– Inspection and maintenance practices.
• Use both 2D & 3D representations/models
• Qualification through Testing or Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level II• Level I plus:
– 4 Years of Acceptable Experience
– Design Impact of start-up, shutdown, vs normal operation
– Information needed before work begins (P&IDs,etc.)
– Determine when work is complete, correct
– Properly manages versions and releases
– Properly extracts data as needed (BOMs, etc.)
• Qualification through Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level III• Level II plus:
• 8 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Space, layout and assure commonly used process
equipment, supporting structures, site infrastructure and facilities, IAW:
• Process Engineer’s P&ID,
• Equipment spacing standards,
• Fabrication and erection methods
• Inspection and maintenance practices.
– Document correctly on appropriate representation
• Qualification through Testing and Acceptable Experience
Professional Piping Designer
Level IV• Level III plus:
• 12 Years of Acceptable Cumulative Experience– Assess in others the skills listed for Level I, II and III
• Demonstrated ability to :
• Bid man hours on limited information.
• Document Client Requirements
• Staffing, Resourcing Projects.
• Establish Schedules & Manage Change
• Qualification through Training and/or Acceptable Experience
PPD Promotion and Promulgation
• Over 1,000 Certified
on 4 Continents
• About 150 PPD
Certified Each Year
• Outreach to
Professional and
Software User
Group Meetings
• New 100% Club
PPD 100% Club• New Initiative for CM’s
• CM Pledges to Get
Pipers PPD Certified
within One Year.
• Gets Free Training
Resources and Help
SPED Course Offerings
• PPD BootCamp– Targets New, CAD Designers
– Fundamentals of Piping Routing and Layout
• Process Plant Layout– Targets Experienced Designers
– O&M Considerations in Layout & Piping
• PPD Certification Reviews
Components of a Typical Pump Suction
and Discharge Piping System(Source: Bausebacher and Hunt)
• Discharge Gate Valve
• Check Valve
• Eccentric Reducer (Flat on Top)
• Concentric Reducer
• Pressure Gauge
• Temporary Strainer
• Suction Gate Valve
• Straight Run
• Casing Vent
• Casing Drain
Typical Topic
SPED Videos• Piper BootCamp:
– Approx 20 hours of video of
voice over power point slides.
– Preparation for PPD Level III
• Process Plant Layout
– PPL Version 1: 66 hours of
video of live presentations
– PPL Version 2: Approx 20
hours of video of voice over
power point slides.
– Preparation for PPD Level III
2010 Online Training Courses
– Process Plant Layout• PPD Level III Exam
– PPD Piper BootCamp • PPD Level I Exam
– Based on the SPED Piper Video Series• PPL Video Course – Upgraded
– PPL V 1.0 & New PPL V 2.0
• Piper BootCamp Video Course
SPED RP-001
• Recommended Practice for Assessing
Piping Designer Baseline Skills and
Competencies
• Controlling Document for Certification
• Implementable by all Trainers,
Employers, Educators, etc.
Levels of
Competence
Future – Badges for Specific Skills
• Digital Credentials for Specific, Targeted
Skills• Think Boy Scout Merit Badges
• More than PDFs of Certificates
• Portable (Backpacks)
• Relatively Self-Documenting, Self-Verifying
– Badges tells where to verify itself
– Contains:
• Skill Description
• Evidence
Digital Credential Advantages• Owned by the user
– Can be sent to employer
– Motivates Learning
• Harder to Forge
– Baked by Issuer
– Issued to Earner
– Displayed by “Displayer”
– Confirmed by “Issuer” (at least in Moodle)
How PDU Uses Badges and Why• Already had the videos and PPT Notes
• 173 total subtopics (following user’s preferences)
• PPT Subtopics not with separate objectives– 15-45 Minutes,
– Often used for Lunch and Learn
• PIPINGDESIGNU.COM– Subscription business model
– Some video trainers use course business model
• Badges Suited to Subscription Site– Engagement is the key to long subscriptions
– Badges are self-rewarding credential
– Many subtopics favor mini-credentials
– Experience shows users pick topics of immediate interest
Business Model: Course vs Subscription
Course Model
• Goal: Completion
• Design: Sequential
• Good For: Body of Knowledge
• Credential: Certifications, Degrees
Subscription
Model• Goal: Subscriber Retention
• Design: Non-Sequential
• Good For: OJT, JIT Skills
• Credential: Mini-Credentials
118 Badges Defined
(21 July 2016)
For More Information:
www.spedweb.com
Contact:
Catherine Van der Walt
Operations Manager
Society of Piping Engineers and Designers
9668 Westheimer Road
Suite 200-242
Houston, Texas 77063
713 960 4478
http://www.spedweb.com/
Questions?
Discussion
Video Licensing Options
• Single Country
– Unlimited Copy/Access within Country
• Global Licensing
– Unlimited Copy/Access within Corp Family
– Requires Global Corporate Membership
– Update Options Available
• Security Requirements: Reasonable
control of access to Videos.
New Training Initiatives:
Green Process Piping
New Training Initiatives: Process
Technology Labs for Pipers
SPED Blogs
• spedcanada.pipingdesign.com
• spedeurope.wordpress.com
• SPED Group Members on linkedin.com
• www.spedweb.com (members only)
• Planned:
– professionalpipingdesigner.com
– SPED Asia
SPED Chapter Rules
• Few rules as possible
• Promote local member interests and
professional development.
• Must be locally led
• Conform only to SPED Objectives, Standards
and Integrity
• Funded by dues rebate plus chapter dues.
• Meet at local firms, suppliers, vendors, etc.
And What About This?(Source: Howard F. Rase)
Piping Design for Process Plants
What Can Companies Do To
Help?
• Endorse PPD Certification
• Review and Comment on Certification Criteria
• Sell Certification Inside Your Organization
• Become Certified
• Ask for Certification in RFPs & Job Postings
• Become a Sponsor