Maintaining Your Mettle in the Metals Business…

Some people are born with determination, or perhaps cast with it, but all high achievers make sure they benefit by learning from others’ successes and mistakes in the metals industry.

A single individual or even a whole company does not have within it the experience of all industry. Over time, internal company knowledge can be lost as one generation of personnel retires and following generations pass through. Also, the most determined individuals tend to hone their expertise in specialisms to scale the career structures and opportunities within their specific sectors and miss the lessons of other sectors.

So, securing for your metals business all the relevant know how of industry cannot be achieved by hiring the best people. Making good use of all the relevant know how of industry is how the best people excel.

That’s where industry associations show their value. There are many industry associations focused on individual sectors, but there’s one that helps the metals industry as a whole to access the knowhow of all other relevant industrial engineering sectors, for every task and career stage globally, and does so as a not-for-profit that puts all its revenues into providing more resources – The Engineering Equipment and Materials Users Association.

EEMUA’s practical ‘how to’ guidance and training resources range extensively, to give you as taste: managing hydrogen damage mechanisms; to selecting and working with the right materials for subsea engineering and nuclear industries; managing and maintaining storage assets for oil, hydrogen and other hazardous materials; managing process safety; inspecting, testing, and repairing metals affected by degradation; risk-based approaches to extending industrial asset lifecycles; limiting use of ageing or damaged assets; specifying and managing online analysers, control rooms and alarms systems to make the most of human factors; working with cyber security and AI; managing third-party inspection processes; and even training resilience, problem solving and more for leadership roles in industrial engineering.

It’s all produced to the compliance standards required by regulators and specified, developed and verified by the industry, for industry… and, the most exacting test of all, proven effective in everyday use by engineers throughout the world. EEMUA’s method for delivering useful ‘how to’ guidance and training (from e-learning, to classroom and blended learning) is initiated and driven by Members coming together with a need and collaborating. As industry peers, they then test and review options to determine the practices that can be relied upon work safely and cost-effectively. They don’t leave things there; they maintain and update that good practice guidance over the years as technology, materials and regulations evolve.

I once talked with one of EEMUA’s team. He explained that he worked for EEMUA because “what EEMUA does is noble… distilling the knowhow of industrial engineering into guidance and sharing it across sectors, geographies and generations, supports engineers in their work to keep people safe from industrial incidents and help businesses and the environment to flourish.”

An impressive internal endorsement, and you can find many Member accolades to back it up. Maybe you’d like to dip your toe in EEMUA’s world by attending an event or taking a training course. You’ll have seen adverts for EEMUA’s resources in this magazine and other industrial engineering journals. Adverts, though, only give a glimpse of the ‘How to’ guidance resources (easily accessible, ‘as much as you want, as much as you can use’) available. Adverts list certificated and CPD-approved training for each career stage that enable individuals and companies to plan and access appropriate career progress for personnel – while personnel concentrate on work in hand. Adverts mention peer networking and real-time knowledge exchange, within sectors and with other sectors, in online forums and live at EEMUA’s Conferences and Seminars held locally and internationally.

What adverts don’t show you are the numerous organisations throughout the world that already make use of EEMUA resources and have done so for more than 75 years. Most EEMUA resources are available to all, and free or discounted for Members and Associates. Perhaps your company is already a Member (find out here) or your team would benefit from getting involved with EEMUA – you get out much more than you put in, and contributing is also of immediate and long-term benefit to your work, you career and your company.

When it’s time to plan your career development or a colleague’s professional development, when you or your team need to keep skills up-to-date and at their peak, or when a particular task needs the wisdom of the whole industry and generations, or when your company wants to contribute its leadership and knowhow to the metals industry, you may find it useful to get in touch with EEMUA to make its resources work best for you and your team.