TRAINING & TECHNICAL JTL OPENS ITS NEW £1 MILLION CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN BIRMINGHAM AND WORCESTER, BOSCH GROUP EXPLAINS HOW THE REQUIREMENTS NEEDED FROM A HEATING AND HOT WATER SYSTEM DIFFER FROM JOB TO JOB Worcester, Bosch Group has opened a new training facility in Normanton, near Wakefield. Featuring five equipped workshops, the new facility includes a Greenstar gas training room, incorporating light commercial gas equipment alongside domestic gas-fired boilers. Within the gas training room, Worcester has installed boilers to allow installers to have individual boilers to train with. The centre also has a Greenstar oil-fired boiler workshop and a Greenskies solar thermal workshop with a pitched roof and scaffolding in place to offer trainees experience of working with solar panels in a realistic situation. The new facility also includes a heat pump room, which features the full range of Worcester heat pumps, including ground source heat pumps, split air to water heat pumps, hybrid units and air to air heat pumps. The training centre is home to a commercial training room as well, which is designed to showcase the larger industrial boilers offered by Bosch Commercial. Phil Bunce, training manager at Worcester, Bosch Group, said: “We aim to double the number of installers we train in the north of the country to around 1,600 installers in 2014. Last year alone, we trained around 18,500 installers at our various training facilities around the UK.” ‘Providing opportunities’ Climate Center, the distributor of cooling equipment, has launched an e-learning programme in tandem with global manufacturer, Danfoss. Comprehensive employee training in refrigeration and air conditioning, and heating and cooling control valves, has been introduced across the Climate Center business, based on courses produced by Danfoss. There are 16 modules covering refrigeration and air conditioning and five on valves, which are accessed via Wolseley UK’s Online Training Academy. Lasting between 30 and 60 minutes each, the units can be accessed at any time via a PC or tablet, and paused and re-started in order to fit around work commitments. Robert Franklin, head of Climate Center’s refrigeration business, said: “Building and extending our technical knowledge enables us to further improve our support for customers, and in turn help them deliver excellent service for their own clients. We are encouraging staff to complete these fantastic online training modules, so that everyone in the company has the same high level of understanding when we speak to and support our customers.” Online training modules released Polypipe will now provide online training support for customers on its range of plastic piping systems. The website has been designed for distribution partners as a training tool for the full range of Polypipe training modules and, for those customers with their own bespoke academies, as an additional resource. It will enable customers to further their Polypipe product knowledge, keep up to date with latest product developments and even to train and test branch staff. Training modules available through the new site include ventilation, plastic plumbing, underfloor heating and above and below ground drainage. At the end of each course there is an assessment to check that the information has been correctly understood, with a pass mark of 75% required. There is no time limit on the assessment and visitors to the module can have multiple attempts until they pass. A ‘realistic situation’ enquiry number 135 enquiry number 136 enquiry number 134 HEATING & PLUMBING MONTHLY DECEMBER 2013 41
HPM December 2013
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