Taken from the old Forum

Piping Training

The following statement is an excerpt from text submitted by Peter Piper to a question on the pipingdesigner.com “Forum.”
“A CAD operator is NOT a piping designer. While a piping designer can use CAD, CAD is merely the designer’s pencil! That’s like saying if you can drive a Ford Fiesta, you are qualified as a Formula 1 driver! Or even, if I have the basic knowledge that allows me to write this sentence, so I must be a novelist!”
Peter was specifically addressing questions on the subject of job descriptions. His comments however are even more appropriate when it comes to the subject of training.

Today, too many people have gotten the idea that a person can take classes in AutoCAD (or some other like program) that may include some piping menus and that will be a fast track ticket to becoming a piping designer. “Take CAD training and you will be a piper.” I had this happen when I was the manager of a piping department. An individual knocked on my door, entered, placed a certificate in front of me and said “I want to transfer into your department and be a piper.” The certificate was for two semesters of evening classes in generic AutoCAD at a local tech school. That person was allowed to enter my next piping basic training class. The person lasted only a few weeks, then deciding that piping was too difficult.

Piping training, be it basic, intermediate, advanced or leadership is not easy. If it is done right it takes years. The subject matter one is expected to master covers a wide range of design, engineering, manufacturing, fabrication, construction and management technology. Also, Piping is not a trade. Piping is a profession and it is a noble profession at that.

The website Dictionary.com defines Training as: ‘To make proficient with specialized instruction and practice.’ Piping requires just that, specialized instruction and practice. This means that there has to be an education process. Dictionary.com defines Education (or Educate) (1) “The act or process of educating or being educated.” (2) “The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process.” (3) “A program of instruction of a specified kind or level.” This means someone has to create a class environment, provide instructional material, collect students and properly present the material. Someone has to do the educating and the student has to do the learning. You should then measure the results and make corrections as required.

This brings the question. Where does one get this type of proper piping training? There is only one formal school that I know of that offers a complete program in Piping Design Technology. That school is the University of Houston-Downtown (http://www.dt.uh.edu) Houston, Texas, USA. Attachment “A” of this document is an outline of the Student Degree Plan. In order to avail yourself of this program you pretty much have to live in Houston.

So, if I don’t live in Houston (or can’t afford to go to school in Huston) what do I do? How do I get piping design training? What kind of training is required? What training method results in the best learning? These are all good questions. The kinds of training that is required would include, over a period of time, all of the basic, intermediate and advanced technical piping subjects plus leadership and supervision. The teaching/learning method depends on many factors. The method of training must consider such things as the subject matter to be taught, the permanence of the activity relating to the subject, the complexity of the subject or material, the number of people to be trained, the time demand for skilled people, etc. The most important of these is the number of people to be trained, when they need to be trained, and when they need to be available. The subject matter and the number of people to be trained will affect the training method to be used.

There are at least three basic methods for training. In the context of a typical engineering office work environment there are definite positive and negative factors for each.
Method one- “Random Observation Training” (may be called absorption) — The person (or trainee) sees something being done a certain way and they are required to copy what they observe.
The positive aspects of this method may be]jopennock@netscape.net[/url]).

Attachment “A”

Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology -Major in Process Piping Design
Student Degree Plan

FRESHMAN
HRS SEM* HRS SEM*
ENG 1302 Composition II ENGR 1400 PC Applications in Engineering
ENGR 1401 Engineering Graphics CHEM 1307 General Chemistry I
HIST 1305 US History to 1877 CHEM 1107 General Chemistry Lab I
PHYS 1307 General Physics I HIST 1306 US History after 1877
PHYS 1107 General Physics Lab I Fine Arts Course
PSY 1303 General Psychology SPCH 1304 Introduction to Speech

SOPHOMORE
HRS SEM* HRS SEM*
ET 2401 Piping Layout I POLS 2304 US Government II
ENGR 2409 Engineering Mechanics PHYS 1308 General Physics II
MATH 2401 Calculus I PHYS 1108 General Physics Lab II
ENGR 23XX Sophomore English Lit. MATH 2402 Calculus II
POLS 2303 US Government I ET 2402 Piping Layout II

JUNIOR
HRS SEM* HRS SEM*
ET 3401 Process Piping Design ET 3307 Applied Thermodynamics
ENGR 3308 Fluid Mechanics I ENG 3302 Business and Technical Writing
EET 1411 Circuit with Lab ENGR 3410 Process Modeling & Simulation
ET 3308 Materials Science ENGR 3302 Engineering Economics
ELECTIVE

SENIOR

ET 4323 Technology Seminar ET 4307 Fluid Mechanics II
ET 4301 Piping Models ET 4315 Piping Stress Analysis
ET 4311 Heat-Power Applications ET 4313 Applied Heat Transfer
ET 4304 Pressure Vessel Design ENGR 4340 Senior Project in Piping Design
ELECTIVE ELECTIVE