First amendable drafts ROV Association

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

Ive opened this thread with the view of posting amendable first drafts of association rules.

Ive put it here for ease of finding in future as hopefully we progress.

Views ,suggestions,objections or amendments please post on the other thread and I will amend on here what we think is necessary.

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

TRAINEE MEMBERSHIP.

A potential trainee requires the following to attain membership of this association.

Maturity,Common sense and the ability to clearly communicate in both verbal and written english.
Some appropriate form of engineering qualification with some industry experience or a good experienced engineering background.
Must learn to be a team player,be enthusiastic but not reckless,forward but not arrogant,be a good listener,be cool headed and non aggresive and have good learning skills.

PILOT/TECH MEMBERSHIP.

To obtain Pilot/Tech membership of this association a potential must complete and submit proof of the following.

A designated number of real flying hours not in the TMS.

A designated number of real flying hours in and around structures,pipelinees and on diver support.

Designated technical jobs satisfactoraly completed and backed up by the job specific ROV Supervisors signature and membership number and the relevent Engineering Log.

Testimonials from 5 different supvs on his team playing, flying and technical abilities.

Testimonials from 5 different pilot/Techs on his usefulness as a team member

GENERAL RULES

Trainee members should be in excess of the operational team.

Minimum wage for Trainee member of this association should be 200us per day offshore

Trainee members should be funded by the employing companies as an investment in their future workforce with the funding built into each contract for training.( Generally tax deductable )

Member Joined: Mar 18, 2007

Brother, Cousin, Nephew, friend of the family. Live next door house down but one.

Well that will make a change.

Sorry to sound so sceptical but that’s the norm these day’s I’m sure we will agree.....

To all people that may, or may not, have a vested interest in this idea.

I would suggest that many people feel that something like this is needed but very few of those people are actually prepared to actually do anything about it themselves.

So, when someone come along with an idea like this, especially when they are being proactive, lets give it a bit of reign and see where it goes.

It's very easy to knock an idea that someone else is trying to develop.. It's not easy to come up with an original idea and develop it from the ground up.

Positive suggestions are good, sensible discussion on the way forward is also good but doing other than posting in negative manner is of no use to anyone.

If the OP wants to take this on initially and progress it, then for the potential benefit of our site members I feel we should let the idea run.
Lets face it the RMT did bugger all in the UK for it''s ROV members... this might end up being a viable alternative.

Member Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Location: Philippines

If your going to do it it needs to be done with recogintion say like the JIB have for the Sparks etc.

http://www.jib.org.uk/index.htm

Although on a smaller scale as there is a lot of sparks in the uk but same type of set up.

And by doing what you have allready said is going up against imca it would be better to work and use there guide lines while advancing to a superior ROV scheme.

but mainly setting the organisation up and later saying what the skill level should be by having a base level operative which all could be by being a member before trainee.

you then need to have key figures in the industry to sit on a comittee

try one thing first while key goal is later you surely will not get the membership by processing like the above fast enough to mover forward

Qualifications are the key of the JIB award system

So should a ROV Technician's position be
.

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

Nosub..
Thankyou for your contribution so far but Im sorry I fail to understand your meaning relating to this thread.

James
Thankyou for the opportunity of trying this using your well structured and informed website.

Deepseacon...
Thankyou for your comments so far.I do understand where you are coming from,however as you know there are many people in our industry who have learned by the seat of their pants and become very proficient at what they do.
At this time what Im trying to go forward towards is a simple straight forward set of rules appertaining to an association which will developp into a body of people who are proficient in what they do and supported by the other members.
I do not envisage going up against IMCA and try to create a training school.Who knows what is in the future but for this embrio Im trying to keep it as simple but strong as possible and from there we can go forward.I have no objections to IMCA except that most people I have encountered in our industry have not done any imca recommended training although I do know many that have IMCA gradings.......Hmmm I would like to see more control of who is graded as what to prevent the usual blaggers.
I maybe wrong and maybe people do want to go the whole hog but that would take a very long time and money and is beyond my ken at this time.
Valid points and welcomed but can I ask that for general points and ideas we use the other thread so that from time to time we can look at the posted proposals here with a view to this thread eventually becoming our agreed rules.

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

So Far

WORLD ROV ASSOCIATION

This is a first amendable draft of some simple rules of membership of this association.

OBJECTIVES:

The objective of this association is to provide a body of professional ROV people who have abilities to a known standard and who expect to work under our agreed set of pay and conditions within the ROV industry as a whole in addition to the existing offshore rules and regulations applying to work and safety.

To provide potential clients with the knowledge of the minimum capabilities of the people working on their tasks.

To help avoid unscrupulous employers using under paid unskilled ROV personnel as fillers of short manned ROV teams to maximize their profits.

CONTENTS

General agreed rules applying to members of this association

Rules on pay

Rules on conditions

Rules on achieving each level of this association

RULES IN ACHIEVING EACH LEVEL OF THIS ASSOCIATION

It is proposed that there will be five levels of membership within this association as follows:

Trainee ROV Pilot/Technician
ROV Pilot Technician
Senior ROV Pilot Technician
ROV Team Supervisor/Manager
ROV Superintendent

TRAINEE PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential trainees who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered trainee pilot/technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have a recognized engineering qualification that has relevance to ROV work AND at least one year in industry gaining engineering experience.

Alternatively the potential candidate must provide checkable proof of an engineering background with at least four years experience of engineering relevant to ROV work.

ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 300 real flying hours (excluding TMS and babysitting hours.)

Minimum 50 hours each flying in and around structures, pipelines and diver support.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ abilities.

Testimonials from three different contactable ROV Pilot Technicians on the candidates team working abilities.

SENIOR ROV PILOT TECHNICIAN

Potential Senior ROV Pilot Technicians who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered Senior Pilot Technician.

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 500 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your flying abilities as a potential Senior ROV Pilot Technician.

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential Senior ROV Technician.

ROV TEAM SUPERVISOR / MANAGER

Potential ROV Team Supervisor/Managers who wish to join this association must fit the following criteria in order to become a registered ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

The potential candidate must be able to communicate coherently in verbal and written English.

The potential candidate should have achieved training as a manager or a teacher/trainer.

The potential candidate must have completed a minimum of 200 days offshore as an ROV Senior Pilot Technician and part of an ROV team.

The potential candidate must submit checkable proof of the following:

Minimum of 700 real flying hours with a broad selection of different tasks in difficult situations.

Testimonials from three different and contactable job specific ROV Supervisors on your abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

A broad base of technical ROV repairs and maintenance completed and backed up by engineering logs and job specific testimonials from three different contactable ROV Supervisors on the candidates’ technical abilities as a potential ROV Team Supervisor/Manager

Member Joined: Jan 18, 2010 Location: Singapore

At a glance with regards to the above, my first thoughts are 'great start'. But there needs to more incentives for employers to go with the association guys over the cheaper equally qualified non members who perhaps don't feel owed a living.
Are you also considering guaranteeing at the risk of expulsion, the behaviour of your members? i.e. Not offfering the client outside, smoking in the 500 hundred, trying to market other ROV companies while they work for another, downing tools as soon as the wind changes for a tactical retreat to the tea shack instead of actually maintaining the sub, treating stores order forms as blank cheque books. In short, that ROV Association agency staff will act as company men when on company time?

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

KreuzOps...
Thanks for the input.Its a start,more to follow and yes Im sure many things will be considered but first we must form the association and get the members onboard,then we can discuss and consider refinements.

Whilst I understand the points that KreuzOps makes I think the best idea would not be get too embroiled in all the finer details or the concept will end up bogged down form the start.

I suggest that the idea of an International Remote Operated Vehicle Contractors Association (IROVCA) is a good one. But let it start fairly clean in a simple format and build from there. I'm sure if such an association existed people would join in considerable numbers as it would appear by name alone to fill a gap that sorely needs plugging. It is obvious to many that we have nobody representing the interests of our industry.

Once membership funds flowed in, assuming sensible management of the bona-fide association it would then gradually develop the financial viability to mature with the passage of time as have (did) the AODC and the IMCA.

If the IROVCA (name used as an example) were to be started with the correct frame work in place, Registered, bank account, contact address, phone,email, website for it to function as an association in these modern times, the rest can be tacked on in 'modules' as things progress.
Get that in place and things can move on.. keep discussing the whole deal.. regulations, rules, safety flashes, grades, experience, pay rates etc. before IROVCA even exists and it'll go no where.

As this seems to be gaining some momentum, at least discussion wise, today I will look into creating a separate IROVCA board and transfer all related threads into it. At lest then there will be a small nucleus of a home for the idea to develop or not.

Make the association Bonafide with the start up membership costs reasonable and I already know of two people that would join.

As an aside... I wouldn't get stuck on International Remote Operated Vehicle Contractors Association (IROVCA) as a name.

Because the IMCA and AODC chose to use teh word contractor doen't mean that ROV would have to naturally follow suit.

Maybe cut out 'Contractor' and use: International Remote Operated Vehicle Association (IROVA or I-ROV-A) as a name.

By taking away the word 'Contractor' it better suggests the membership base might be more open (Offshore - oil, gas, wind energy, Onshore, and Marine Science) and therefore not portray the Association as only for companies (contractors) working in the Offshore sector.

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

James.
Thankyou for the input you seemed to have gleaned the idea correctly.
From small acorns grow large oaks.
Thankyou for the facilities to date.

Member Joined: Apr 04, 2006

I just had a thought. It does not happen that often so I am happy about it.

Why do we keep insisting on Trainees having industry experience and qualifications coming out of there ears? (read the next bit before responding).

Surely we should also be looking at bringing through ROV apprentices and encouraging companies to train up people from scratch using some of the training budgets in a more industry proactive manner.

Fugro have done this in the past and I seem to remember the one guy I met being pretty good at his job. I think other companies have toyed with the idea. That way we would have trainees offshore who we know exactly what training they have and where they came from.

Obviously I do not mean leave school go offshore they would need base time etc before going onto the vessels and operating the systems. This method of training could acctually lead to a proper HNC type qualification in the maintenance and operation of ROV equipment removing the need for all the various training schools some of whom seem only interested in profit. Through the association it would be possible to perhaps create a much more practical training system

I agree

Member Joined: Jun 13, 2010

Lucky Jim, James...

Its a great thought and one that could be acted upon once we are up and running.

Since thinking of this I have been concerned about the funding of this and have been trying to work out what we can offer at the begining in return for some funding to start whereupon we could go forward into training as well as every aspect concerning us in this industry and it has suddenly occured to me that maybe the way ahead in the first inst is to create the association,name the association, set up an account and offer in the begining only the opportunity to become founder members.

Maybe in a short space of time enough will be in the coffers to tackle our industry step by step openly and transparently to members.

Perhaps some of our more up to date fiscal cognisant members of our industry can come up with the best advice on the set up as its been a few years since I have had to consider such things.
The main thing would be to make it open and transparent so that members can see that this is a genuine attempt at updating our industry.