Competency in Hazardous Areas: Time for a Change.
In the world of hazardous area inspections, the word competency gets thrown around constantly. But what does it actually mean?
Traditionally, competency has been assessed through three key areas:
- Experience – how long someone has been doing the job.
- Training – what formal or third-party courses they’ve completed.
- Company systems – how their employer enforces and maintains compliance.
These are the foundations of any safe operation. But in the Hazardous Area world, that foundation isn’t enough anymore.
The Human Side of Competency
You can be the most skilled hazardous area inspector on the planet, but if you’re having a bad day, that changes everything.
Imagine being offshore for weeks, mentally exhausted, and then receiving bad news from home. Your focus slips just slightly, and that’s where potentially catastrophic non-compliances are missed.
Even in aviation, perhaps the most rigorously controlled and precisely engineered industry on Earth, NASA research shows that around 70% of aviation accidents involve human error.
If pilots at the top of their field are susceptible to these factors, then so are inspectors, engineers, and technicians working in hazardous areas.
Illuminating Human Error
At Mantl-Ex, we’re focused on cutting down human error wherever it hides. To do that, we’re moving past the old ways of working and using today’s technology to genuinely improve how people perform in the real world.
Let’s be honest the standards are a mess. Fragmented across regions, often contradictory, and full of grey areas open to interpretation. And now, with social media, we’ve got a new breed of self-appointed “experts”. Attending one hazardous area course, and suddenly they’re Dr. Hazardous Area chasing clicks and likes instead of credibility. Throw in the corporates, more focused on profit than compliance, and it only gets worse!
None of this commentary provides practical value to the end users who need clear guidance on managing hazardous areas and establishing safe, compliant work environments.
A New Era of Compliance
Today, we have the technology to work smarter and safer. Digital inspection platforms, competency tracking, connected systems they can highlight risks earlier and provide real insight into hazardous area compliance. However, there’s still a bottleneck: they all rely heavily on human data entry.
That’s why Mantl-Ex is developing a new era of competency. One that minimises human error, is supported by modern technology, and is shaped by the realities of our industry.
Competency is not defined by years of experience or the certificates on the wall. It is defined by consistency, by the ability to carry out the work correctly, safely, and to the required standard every single time.
Mantl-Ex’s priorities remain clear and consistent:
Safety. Quality. Cost.
We don’t elevate one at the expense of the others. We maintain the balance required to achieve full, dependable compliance for our customers.