Competence Management System (CMS)

Nearly everybody demonstrates competence through the WAMITAB route and although that might be best for the vast majority of people, there is an approved alternative and we are one of the only Centres that can offer you this option.

The CMS is a very different way of demonstrating technical competence as it looks at the whole company rather than just that of one individual.

The clients we have worked with on the CMS have found it to be quite a different experience as it involves working with each member of the workforce and not just a single manager. This doesn’t necessarily make it more difficult and the companies actually found it to be very useful as it enabled them to look at all aspects of the company, particularly in terms of site safety and permit compliance.

A positive to the CMS for some companies is that you are not locked into specific individuals with WAMITAB qualifications. Instead the CMS can be used to ‘qualify’ a number of managers through an internal training and competence programme. Having said that, for some a downside is that it can involve setting up a lot of systems and procedures if they are not already in place.

The CMS is probably an option that you were not aware of and as always, it will work for some, but not all. Therefore give us a call to chat through the option to see if it might be right for you.

See below for a Case Study of the work we undertook with a client, progressing them to their CMS certification.

Background

We were already working with the owner of a small scrap site on the completion of a WAMITAB Technical Competence qualification for him and one of his key staff. As is often the case, the academic aspects were proving more difficult and there was also the aspect of the 2 yearly Continuing Competence test that he was not looking forward to. One other concern was that should the staff member leave, it would result in a shortfall in the Technical Competence cover for the site.

The Solution

We discussed the CMS as a possible solution for him as it ticked many of the boxes:

• It would enable a larger number of staff on site to be designated as ‘competent managers’ for his Permit
• The competence was related to the work role and not to named individuals, therefore it would not be affected should managers leave
• It would be matched into the requirements of the site Environmental Management System, reducing the ongoing work needed to keep it running
• It would cover the competence of all the workforce, therefore health and safety would also be improved
• There was no individual assessment
• There was no ongoing individual test

The Considerations

Although it all seemed very positive we also highlighted some of the other issues that needed to be taken into consideration:

• There is a financial cost to the development and implementation of the system
• There is a time cost to the development and implementation of the system
• There is an ongoing commitment to keeping the system up to date and relevant
• The system is externally inspected and certificated

The Work

Once the client had weighed up the pros and cons of the options he decided to move forward with the CMS. We helped him through each stage of the process, which involved:

• A review of the CMS requirements to what was already in place on site
• Preparing the necessary paperwork to fill in the gaps
• Helping to deliver the training programmes
• Preparing the System paperwork for external audit
• Assisting the client in the audit process
• Ongoing support following initial certification

The Outcome

Following the certification audit the client became only the 4^th in the country to be issued with a Competence Management System certificate demonstrating competence.