ASFP Training | What The Future Brings

ASFP Training | What The Future Brings

Chris Sharman, the ASFP Training Manager, introduces ASFP’s newest training course.

Training, education, and upskilling are the key to achieving the desired objectives of increasing competency across the construction industry. The historic methods of teaching, both in theoretical and practical forms has typically utilised an in-person methodology. This may take the form of sitting in a classroom or working in a practical training centre with a direct interaction with the training leadership.

The development of training over previous decades has enabled the change from pure classroom to distance learning, and then to hybrid methods with a mixture of online and classroom education. The confluence of changes forced upon us during the COVID pandemic, coupled with advancing technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and the reduced costs and ready availability of high-capacity consumer electronics and high-speed internet have shown that just like remote working, online training is not only a possibility, but an opportunity. More recent developments have taken the classroom from a fixed location to a virtual one accessible by multiple trainees from a myriad of locations. The next development would appear to be the wholesale movement of the classroom itself into a virtual environment where students and instructors can interact with one another in a shared space enabling a level of interaction not available in a traditional online learning environment, whilst simultaneously offering the opportunity to get hands-on with tools and equipment in an environment that does not burden the training provider with the cost of space and materials.

A possible option presented by currently available technology would be a mobile training facility that enables the establishing of a virtual shared-space training environment that has the flexibility to be run locally or remotely, that can itself be moved to different locations enabling localised training in conjunction with the facilities and services provided by others, and which can be regularly updated and expanded with new materials and subject matter to suit the training providers, recipients, and the changing regulatory and commercial landscape.

Is it conceivable that such a facility could be available in the near future? Could we possibly carry out training on the installation of passive fire protection for example without needing to go to the expense of having to use fire stopping materials a wall to put it in?

Well, it may surprise you to know that this is the very journey on which the ASFP have taken their first steps.

We have recently entered into a partnership with RiVR to support us in the provision of a VR training suite enabling the provision of VR training using a portable system connecting up to 10 trainees with a training instructor in a virtual environment. This is to be housed in a mobile facility which can be taken to any location as required to provide training in support of our members’ requirements. This training may be a stand-alone ASFP offering, or it could be a joint hybrid training created and carried out in conjunction with our members at their business or customer  locations. The possibilities are endless but as a start, the ability to provide classroom training to installers of passive fire systems and the ability to see the methods, systems, products, and applications for a variety of product types across the whole passive fire sector without having to try and access several different manufacturer facilities simultaneously provides us with an opportunity to upskill from the “coal face” whilst providing a wider overview of passive fire protection generally.

The system is designed to be adaptable so we may be able to run multiple courses simultaneously across several locations, we can adapt the environment, the materials, and the scale of all of our offerings, and we can tailor our offerings to the requirements of our members, and the wider construction industry enabling a flexible, mobile platform for increasing competency whilst not burdening users of the facility with the fixed overheads associated with the provision of fixed training facilities.

The ability to reach so many across the country, the industry, and the sector in such a way opens up a promising series of opportunities for true engagement with industry stakeholders in elevating our sector to an industry with a formally recognised competency pathway.