AIS secures lucrative Stork contract

North East training and manufacturing specialist, AIS has secured a prestigious new contract with one of the leading players in the oil and gas industry.

AIS will provide comprehensive skills training and competence assessments for Stork’s personnel based in the North-East of England, expanding the organisation’s training capabilities across the UK.

Stork Technical Services (Stork) is the leading global provider of knowledge-based asset integrity management services for the oil and gas, chemical and power sectors. The company recognised a growing need to multi-skill its existing workforce, at the same time as identifying the need to ensure existing and new employees were competent with up-to-date knowledge and skills.

Paul Stonebanks, managing director of AIS, explains the contract: “Many of Stork’s employees are based in the North East of England and the company wanted a training provider close by who could deliver the skills training needed locally. AIS has extensive industry knowledge and experience and we understand what employers require from a training provider.

“Stork approached us to see if we could help and we responded by providing tailored training solutions to address the company’s ongoing needs. As well as ploughing huge investment into two world-class fabric maintenance training facilities where we can deliver specialist OPITO trade skills such as blasting, painting and fire proofing for Stork personnel, we are implementing a programme of core competency assessments to provide an objective and comprehensive review of staff skills’ levels.

“This will enable us to jointly identify any skills gaps and put the most appropriate training programmes in place to address them. As well as helping Stork assess their existing workforce’s skills, this service will prove invaluable when identifying new members of staff or contractors.

Training under the new contract is now underway in both the AIS training facility in North Shields and Stork’s training facility in Dyce, Aberdeen. Bespoke training delivered at Stork’s Dyce facility will include Blaster/ Painter skills tests and the OPITO 2 day Blaster/Sprayer Competency Assessment, AIS being the only company delivering this in Aberdeen to date.

All training courses are automated through the AIS Training Management System (TMS), making the workforce’s training needs easy and seamless with multiple course bookings, competency and certificate records easier to maintain.

Fraser Coull, operations support director, of Stork, said: “Skills shortages remain a key issue for the oil and gas sector and, like any other business in the industry, sourcing the best, most qualified and multi-skilled personnel to deliver our operations in a safe and effective manner is extremely important to us.

“AIS offers outstanding facilities, including a new state-of-the art emergency response fire-fighting training centre, and therefore was a natural choice for us.

“Stork operates a continuous development plan for all of our personnel and feel that by utilising a local, high quality training provider in the North-East of England will streamline our operations. We recognize the importance of developing and retaining the best in the industry, and I am confident that training capability expansion will be a major contributor to the long-term success of Stork.”

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