SQT Blog

Seventy four people have just received HETAC awards for their recent Six Sigma training. Fifty of those, mostly Level 7 Green Belts, completed in-company projects realising cost savings of an average of €62,000. This is an excellent return on their training investment. Twenty four people completed their Level 6 Green Belt training by doing a case study rather than an in-company project.

Most people on completion of training go on to do a number of further projects for their companies, thus achieving further company cost savings.

The next Green Belt courses are starting on 19th October in Cork and 9th November in Dublin. Details here for Green Belt HETAC Level 7 (in-company project) and Green Belt HETAC Level 6 (case study) options. The next Black Belt commences in Dublin on 12th October.

Now if only we could tackle Ireland Inc …

With headlines like ‘High fail rates in Leaving Cert science, maths courses‘, (Irish Times morning of the Leaving Cert results), Engineers Ireland have just come up with a good practical idea. They have just announced that they are to offer grinds to higher-level Leaving Certificate Maths students. The grinds will start on Saturday 25th of September and continue until the Easter holidays.

The grinds, which are free of charge, will be held at the Engineers Ireland offices, 22 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge from 11am to 2pm every Saturday beginning September 25th until the Easter weekend. Students must register online at www.engineersireland.ie/mathsgrinds to book their attendance as places are limited.

For those who can’t attend the grinds in person, the tutorials are available on the Engineers Ireland website.

Credit to Engineers Ireland – What a smart idea for the smart economy.

FETAC have four assessment periods – January, May, August and November. As always, we had candidates going through for this assessment period. Congratulations to all those who did very well on the various courses:

Implementing HACCP
Food Safety Training Skills
Design of Experiments
Lean Manufacturing Tools
Train the Trainer

Welcome to Jean, who has just joined our admin team here at SQT. Jean who hails from Tipperary joined us a little hoarse after last Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling final. She’s hoarse again though today after the Under-21 win on Saturday.

Jean is Kim’s sister. So we have two from Tipp in the office. We like winners on our team!

… Won’t mention that anyone is from Kilkenny!

This is a question we frequently get asked here in SQT.

We have four Environmental Auditing courses.

The first is the:
EMS/Internal Environmental Auditor course

We then have three IEMA approved auditing training courses:

IEMA Approved Foundation Course in Environmental Auditing (Ireland)

IEMA Approved Advanced EMS Auditing Course (Ireland)

IEMA Approved Internal EMS Auditing (Ireland/Northern Ireland)

(EMS Environmental Management System)

The first course, the EMS/Internal Environmental Auditor course is a two day course designed for those who want to:

.
This course is very popular and when run in-house, can be tailored to suit company requirements and include an on-site practical audit.

The next three courses are IEMA accredited. IEMA, The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment is an independent, non-profit making organisation, dedicated to raising standards of professional competence in the environmental auditing and environmental management systems auditing fields and is the largest body of environmental auditors world-wide. More information on IEMA can be found on their website here.

The IEMA approved Foundation and Advanced courses are both five day intensive training courses.

The Foundation course will be of interest to company personnel who are responsible for implementing or maintaining the EMS in their company. It will also be of interest to those who are responsible for the internal environmental auditing function within their company.

The Advanced course prepare delegates for the role of environmental auditors/assessors of EMS to standards acceptable to third party certification bodies. Attendees should be familiar with the requirements of ISO 14001/EMAS before attending this course. The course is intended for environmental and quality professionals who have previously attended an IEMA approved course or who have a sound understanding of EMS and who wish to improve their environmental auditing skills and refresh their knowledge of environmental issues and themes.

In other words if you have a good prior knowledge of EMS and need more training in auditing skills, the Advanced course is for you. If you need intensive training in EMS, then the Foundation course is more suitable.

Both five day courses get a lot of material covered. The practical component on both courses is based on a comprehensive case study. With both five day courses, there is continuous assessment of practical work through out the course and a written examination at the end.

A certificate of competence is awarded to participants who satisfactorily complete the course continuous assessment and examination. Both five day courses meet the training requirements for registration as an Associate Environmental Auditor with IEMA. To register for the next level of Environmental Auditor, you will also need to meet the specified auditing hours required by IEMA.

Both five day courses cover European/Irish legislation

Finally we provide the three day IEMA approved Internal EMS Auditing course only as an in-house course. This is similar to the first course I covered above, but is IEMA accredited. This course covers European/Irish but also Northern Ireland legislation.

People who have queries on any of the above can email akelly@sqt.ie.