KSA project on pace for 2013 completion

Harry Hawkins, member of the KSA Drilling Onshore group and global account manager for Helmerich & Payne, speaks with Drilling Contractor associate editor Katherine Scott about the KSA project.

By Amy Rose, IADC director of external relations

The IADC Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA) project is well under way, with several key tasks completed and other initiatives in development. Upon completion, the KSAs will set competency benchmarks for virtually every rig position and provide a foundation of information for the industry to demonstrate the qualifications of their personnel.

Eight workgroups have been assembled to work on the project: Drilling Onshore, Drilling Offshore, Subsea Operations, Marine Operations, Technical Maintenance, QHSE/Process and Procedures, Facility Management and Regulatory.

Members of each group have submitted company resource competency line items for group review, revised competencies as needed and identified each line-item competency as a “core” or “additional” competency based on each position. The work completed so far is undergoing a final group review before the competencies are mapped for the database.

On the technical side, the KSA database design has been drafted, and a platform has been selected. The official KSA survey has been sent out to 110 companies for their input.

Worldwide mapping for the project, which focused on interviews with global organizations, is also complete. Members of the organizations surveyed provided critical insight on lessons learned from similar projects.

“Our workgroups are currently hard at work developing initial competencies for safety positions,” said Brooke Comeaux, IADC competence and learning development specialist. “We have a targeted completion date for later this year, with a goal of completing competencies for a total of 73 rig positions.”