IADC’s accreditation & credentialing efforts have sure had a unique year. Despite the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, the public health protocols forced the entire industry to accelerate certain initiatives. With IADC, we repurposed our KREW continuous-learning platform to continue our well control certifications across the world. This is how WellSharp Live came about last year. Tech start-ups launch websites and mobile apps every day, but those ventures do not usually have the level of scrutiny and consistency for safety that the drilling industry requires. Given the industry’s commitment to safety, any program we develop has to stand the test of time.
Online Well Control Training
For the past year, WellSharp Live has served the industry as a distance-learning resource. With this pivot of the KREW technology, we’ve created an entirely new course for an international, professional audience. WellSharp Live is that new tool in our tool belt. It has proven valuable our worldwide network of accredited well control trainers, as they maintain the current rate of certifications. At the time of this writing, over 7,500 trainees have been trained with the new WellSharp Live course. IADC is proud to serve the needs of all those oil and gas workers stuck at home for the past year.
The drilling industry is continuously committed to improvement; so is IADC. Our quality assurance and quality control efforts look for ways to iterate our courses. With technology, those iterations can come faster as the feedback loop of learning allows for real-time assessments of performance. After many months of re-assessing of Version 1.0, IADC has developed a few enhanced proctor features for WellSharp Live. This will ensure our programs are meeting the standards of the industry and the trainees across the globe. In fact, IADC’s accreditation and credentialing initiatives were recently certified for the 15th straight year with its ISO 9001:2015 certification in quality management system.
Making Trainings Safe
That attention on the critical details has meant growing WellSharp Live. As a Membership-driven initiative, many may not know that the entire WellSharp program has an Advisory Panel that provides oversight to this industry resource. The Advisory Panel represents a broad swatch of key stakeholders in well control training. Their real-world insight has been one of the keys to strengthening the program. One way is by recently voting to remove all restrictions on eligibility to use WellSharp Live. This will broaden the scope of available trainees and allows WellSharp Live to become a permanent delivery option for well control training. Additionally, as IADC monitors performance throughout the next year, we’ll be working with our Advisory Panel to determine possible program incentives to motivate end-users.
Continuous Oil & Gas Safety Courses
Another tool IADC has recently launched to the industry is the Knowledge Retention & Education for our Workforce (KREW) platform. The KREW system is IADC’s continuous-learning platform for well control concepts. The platform was designed specifically to address knowledge decay among our workforce. Knowledge decay is a naturally occurring phenomenon in humans as new information replaces the old. For anyone who’s crammed for their ancient history final or an organic chemistry exam the night before will understand that knowledge is only critical when you need it.
In an industry with slim safety tolerances, the fundamentals of well control and other oilfield safety topics are not something we want our crews “cramming” for. That’s why KREW was developed with the end-user in mind, focusing on short time commitments to shore up the unique knowledge gaps of each individual. KREW does this with spaced micro-learning and retrieval practice. With our content provided by three contributors, we’re looking at growing that list to address those gaps with bite-sized chunks of structured learning. Additionally, IADC is currently developing an alternate training path for KREW users leading to a possible shortened recertification course. This overall approach leverages the latest in adult learning theory for delivering shorter training sessions to an industry of people busy working their day-job. This was IADC’s approach because, with safety training, the final exam is real life. There’s no cramming for that.
Reshaping Safety Skills Orientation
Our RigPass safety orientation program is another initiative that has been updated. Launched almost 30 years ago by IADC’s HSE Committee, a Committee workgroup felt that it was about time for a facelift. That’s why, for the past two years, the workgroup set off on revising learning objectives, changes to instructional content, and electronic enhancements. The result is RigPass 2.0. All told, these updates strategically position RigPass 2.0 to help standardize and align trainee instruction across disciplines, geographies, and other courses. An added component will also feature RigPass To Go, which is our fully designed program with interactive facilitated activities built throughout the entirety of the content. For 2021, IADC will continue converting the curriculum.
Current Driller- and Supervisor-level courses are also being converted as the WellSharp Advisory Panel wanted unconventional well control content included as part of the program. Supervisor level recommendations are currently under development. Driller level recommendations have been completed and are moving to the Advisory Panel for final approval vote. Once all the recommended topics are approved, the specific assessment questions need to be created and distributed among our accredited providers. This type of consensus-based collaboration is the strength of the industry.
Providing Better Safety Land Trainings
Basin United is the latest program that stands as a testament to the industry’s commitment to collaboration. The single safety orientation program unites 16 Permian Basin operators in an effort to improve orientation training with better standardization as well as streamlining redundant course materials. IADC has completed development of 2 Basin United courses. With those new curricula, we’ll create a blended course with RigPass, in the same effort to focus on the safety mindset that matters and the actions that can get us there. Basin United is set to launch in April 2021. IADC is excited for the collaboration on safety it’s witnessed across the region and committed to keep these initiatives strong, smart, and resilient enough to stand the test of time.
