Continued Professional Development

[friartuck]

As a member of a small company, I find it difficult to keep ahead of the countless new regulations and technical developments. MY Institute provides training but at a very high cost. A simple one or two day seminar might easily be £400-00 which is expensive and quite often the training isn't great.And you might need to attend two or three of these a year..just to keep up.

I certainly can't aford to pay for it. Typically, there are courses on new refrigerants, air-conditioning design, safety, kitchen ventilation, fluid dymnamics, computerised modelling techniques etc. The list is varied.

How can a small business compete with the multi-nationals like Arup and White Young Green etc. who appear to have a bottomless pit of money to train their staff.

Is this the beginning of the end for the small guy??

Any ideas?

Friar Tuck of Sherwood

 

[PSE]

Trade Magazines and obtaining copies of the revised standards for review would be the first thing I would attempt. Many trade magazines (at least in the US) offer free subscriptions and also have on-line or e-mail versions. Standards institutes offer copies for a fee (generally less than the cost of a class). Assuming that there is familiarity with standards within your company, it would be a matter of spending time to review what new changes and/or clarifications have been made.

Regards,

 

[SlideRuleEra]

To add to PSE's excellent advice, here is link to typical free technical magazines that may be of interest to a ME:

http://www.tradepub.com/_brands/

http://www/cat/Mech.cat.html

Don't know if they are available overseas, however.

 

[Rich2001]

The requirements for CPD vary greatly between jurisdictions, so keep this in mind when you read these recommendations.

1. Having an article you wrote published.
2. Take online courses, such as:

http://www.pdhonline.org

http://www.gisceu.com

http://www.ronblank.com/ce_course_home.htm

http://www.redvector.com/

3. Giving a presentation to an organization
4. Teaching at a college - part-time
5. Become an officer of the organization

 

[Cooky]

Hi Friar,

I know what you mean, some of the so-called professionally organized seminars are very expensive!!.

I'm attending a one-day seminar soon, that's organized by BISRIA, it's only £100 (not too bad!!).

Equipment manufacturers are a good source of free CPD seminars, they use the opportunity to market their own equipment under the banner of free CPD training.

Although this may appear to be nothing more than a sales pitch dressed-up as CPD, they can be very informative sessions and worth a few hours of your time.

Try some of the following chiller manufacturers......

Carrier
Toshiba
York
Trane
Airedale
Mercury

Good luck,

Cooky