The U.S. petrochemical industry is facing a serious shortage of skilled craft workers.
The U.S. energy and petrochemical industry has experienced incredible growth over the last decade. One of the most pressing issues facing the industry is finding skilled and qualified workers vital to the success of future capital and ongoing maintenance projects for critical infrastructure. U.S. industrial labor demand is expected to outpace labor supply over the next five years leaving hundreds of thousands of open positions. Leading among these labor shortages are diminishing number of welders qualified and available to address the growing demand.
WSI’s implementation of automation, technology, and innovation
While the industrial labor shortages may serve as an initial call to action to implement enhancement recruitment strategies for some, WSI sees automation as the solution to the shortage of skilled welders. Automating the welding process has many advantages over manual welding including reduced schedule and cost due increased productivity and lower rework. These advantages can readily be achieved with less-skilled but trained welder operators, reducing the dependency on skilled manual craft labor.
WSI’s remote video control camera systems
Safety is unequivocally critical to all hot work permitted activities in the turnaround. By limiting the number of personnel in confined spaces, operators are removed from immediate danger and have the ability to safely operate from a remote location. WSI can perform welding from a safe distance outside the blast zones of the plant or even outside the security perimeter.
WSI’s field applied remote video control systems improves productivity and quality of critical welds all while reducing operating costs associated with workscopes. Using proprietary technology, WSI can remotely control welding parameters to ensure the operator is utilizing the qualified procedure. Furthermore, by removing substantial numbers of personnel from congested, over-heated, confined spaces, WSI has proven the ability to increase production by allowing the operators to focus on the quality of weld rather than the dangerous environment. Overall, the reduction in downtime translates to schedule and cost reductions for sites dealing with critical path workscopes.
WSI
Whether the project needs to be executed emergently or during a planned turnaround, WSI has unparalleled innovative leadership in the nuclear, refining, power generation and petrochemical industries. WSI has over 2000 ASME qualified procedures and over 1000 active welder certifications. Find out more about our engineered solutions and welding technologies at WSI.
