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News Release from: UK Weighing Federation | Subject: UK Weighing Federation
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 22 June 2005
Joint weights, measures training
established
A joint training initiative between the UK Weighing Federation and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff is bringing about an important development in the weighing field of legal metrology.
A joint training initiative between the UK Weighing Federation and the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC) is bringing about an important milestone in the weighing field of legal metrology Legal weights and measures are fundamental to a sustainable trading economy and the UK has had relevant legislation for over 1000 years
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 9 Apr 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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It is therefore surprising that although weighing is one of the fundamental parameters affecting our everyday life, until now there has been no formalised training for people involved in this vitally important industry.
As a result, individual companies have been responsible for the training of their own engineers and sales personnel.
This has lead inevitably to ambiguities and misleading information being passed on to customers, albeit often unwittingly.
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Now a new course, aimed at sales and service personnel within the weighing industry, offers standardised training in the weighing aspects of legal metrology, culminating in a National Certificate of Competence.
Training takes place in a virtual learning environment (VLE) via a dedicated Web site and students provide evidence of competence through an assessed logbook of activity.
The course covers a comprehensive range of subjects over the four months work based learning period including practical and legal aspects of weighing and associated equipment.
UWIC is one of only three UK universities which run a degree course for Trading Standards Officers.
It has also been very proactive in establishing work based learning courses and was therefore the ideal choice for setting up the training.
The course is supervised by Andy Hayward who spent over 17 years as a Trading Standards officer in Cardiff.
As the first group of around 75 students near the end of the course, Hayward is very upbeat about the new qualification and as he explains: "During my time as a Trading Standards officer I sometimes came across situations where customers had been wrongly advised about their weighing equipment".
"I am confident this new qualification will help companies maintain a high level professional competence within the industry".
"The course allows students to do the required studying to fit in with their normal working routine and hopefully can discuss the material with other company members".
"There is a 'talk-back' section on the Web site where students can post questions and queries regulating to the course material".
"Answers may come back from other students or if not I will respond personally within 24 hours".
"In addition, students are also welcome to email me direct." John Anthony, the UKWF's technical officer is keen to clarify that this is not the weighing industry policing itself and as he points out: "Although the Federation agreed the course structure in conjunction with the university, and members of the Federation sit on the joint steering committee, the course is independently run and students are assessed by UWIC personnel".
"Unlike some professional bodies in other industries, the UKWF keeps a close watch on the ethics and suitability of its members".
"It runs a strict code of membership and will not hesitate to expel members who breach the code".
"This training will ensure that customers can have confidence in using UKWF members whose personnel have achieved this national qualification, knowing that their service provider will have a high level of up-to-date legal metrology knowledge.".
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