Certification? 1

[DASKAT]

Hey folks,
I work for an instrumentation and testing firm and am wondering how to get certified as a thermal imaging inspector in order to help my company grow. Any help would be appreciated.
DASKAT

 

[TMP2]

Im actually looking onto this as well. There are a few guys out there, all are charging about 2,000 for a level 1 certification based on the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT)standards. So far i feel pretty good abouth the snell group, think i may be signing up for there class in the near future.

http://www.thesnellgroup.com

http://www.infraredtraining.com/certification/

 

[Zogzog]

I know the Snell guys pretty well and have heard good things about Johns courses.

 

[IRJohn]

Certification can be confusing in the world of infrared! I'm more interested in QUALIFICATION. I believe that is based on appropriate training, qualifying experience and demonstration of performance (testing). The American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) say the same thing and have standards against which thermographers can be certified. Certification, stated simply, is written testimony of qualification.

Trouble arose because several training companies long ago took it upon themselves to "certify" thermographers. I wish I could say folks who complete our training are fully qualified. Typically they are not! We get them ready to get qualifying experience (and send them off in the right direction knowing how to avoid big mistakes). There are few (very few!) legal requirements for certification.

Many thermographers and their employers take this route to certification thinking "IR must be easy" and "Why not, this is fast." The end result is that many people out there who say they are certified are not really qualified. Results are mixed, some good and some very poor.

ASNT has described what a person needs to be qualified in IR, including the education needed, the field experience required and the way they can be tested to insure consistent, high-quality results. I can send you a document that discusses all of that. Our training fully complies with these standards, as does the training of several other companies.

Setting up a certification program in your company that fully complies with ASNT is not difficult. After a person is qualified (by training, experience and testing), it is the company that actually certifies them. ASNT certification has worked well for over 65 years in 12 test methods and it works well for infrared.

If you have any questions I can answer, feel free to post them here and/or call me anytime. I'll do my best to answer them honestly and factually.




If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact me.
John Snell
Snell Infrared

http://www.snellinfrared.com

 

[DASKAT]

John,
Thank you for the valuable post. I would love more info and your post was one of the most concise I have read on this site. Keep up the good work.
ssn_tough@yahoo.com

 

[Zogzog]

John,

I did substation training for 15 years and had the same problem, some companies would offer "certification" when in fact a true certification requires a outside certifing body, proctered exams by an independent company, etc... The term certification is thrown around quite a bit in many industries, the thing is most ertifications are not worth the cost of the paper certificate they give you after class. NETA has some really good info on certifcation processes and requirements. Speaking of, will you be in San Antonio?

 

[IRJohn]

Thank you. We can only keep showing up professionally and hope others see the difference! Unfortunately I will NOT be at the NETA conference this year. I'll miss it and have already put 2010 on my calendar. (Our courses are now approved for NETA CEUs by the way.)

DASKAT, I'll send you some other information about ASNT-compliant certification by email. The same offer stands for others and I'll try to get all posted in the White Paper section here soon.

If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact me.
John Snell
Snell Infrared

http://www.snellinfrared.com