The Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) is to stage its first training awards ceremony at its AGM Dinner to be held in May. The Awards, which are being presented in association with BSEE, were officially launched last year at the 4th Building Controls Industry Conference. However, the popularity of the Awards with members of the BCIA has led to a formal event with this year’s winners being acknowledged at an official ceremony.
“The skills now required by building controls engineers touches on all aspects of building services; from the extensive range of plant and equipment that comprise a building services system right through to the wider aspects of facility management,” explained Doug Robins, BCIA President. “As a result, our engineers need to be highly skilled in not just HVAC and lighting interoperability, but have equal capabilities in computer technology and telecommunications, for example.”
To meet these exacting demands the Association created its own industry training programme, launched in 2002, based on exam standard qualifications. Since then 777 individual certificates have been awarded, resulting in 123 Technical Certificates and 49 Advanced Technical Certificates. In addition, the technical training programme has been granted CPD accreditation via the IEE and CIBSE. The BCIA Technical Training Programme is operated by the Electrical Contractors Association and details of available courses and dates can be found on their web site (www.eca.co.uk).
“The success of the technical training programme can be judged not just in numbers, but by the fact that each year more contractors and other related professionals are enrolling. With BSEE and its publishers, Datateam, supporting this event, we are in a strong position to extend even further the need for recognised building controls qualifications,” concluded Doug Robins.
