NADALEEN SINGH

PCS Ni­tro­gen Ltd is to be award­ed the com­pa­ny of the year award by the So­ci­ety of Tri­bol­o­gists and Lu­bri­cant En­gi­neers (STLE). STLE col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies to host a con­fer­ence, be­tween March 24 to 27. The ed­u­ca­tion train­ing as­pect of the con­fer­ence is en­ti­tled, Main­te­nance, Op­er­a­tion and Trou­bleshoot­ing of Gas Tur­bines and Com­pres­sors. Kuar­lal Ram­per­sad, STLE's pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer, said the award pre­sen­ta­tion recog­nis­es com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als that have strict­ly ad­hered to safe­ty and health rules, with the min­i­mum of in­jury or ac­ci­dents.

"We would be giv­ing out a com­pa­ny of the year award to PCS Ni­tro­gen. PCS Ni­tro­gen stands out be­cause their safe­ty records were up to par and no em­ploy­ees were in­jured based on STLE's cri­te­ria and stan­dards.

"There were four cri­te­rias for se­lect­ing the com­pa­ny of the year award. The first cri­te­ria was the safe­ty per­for­mance of the com­pa­ny. "Sec­ond­ly, the ex­tent to which the com­pa­ny got in­volved in pre­serv­ing the en­vi­ron­ment, like clean­ing the beach­es. Third­ly, the sup­port pro­vid­ed to STLE, and fourth­ly, is how much the com­pa­ny im­pact­ed on the gross do­mes­tic prod­uct in the coun­try," Ram­per­sad said. UWI prin­ci­pal, Prof Clement Sankat, would be pre­sent­ed with the STLE in­ter­na­tion­al hon­orary mem­ber­ship award. Prof Sankat would be the sec­ond Trinida­di­an and Caribbean na­tion­al to re­ceive that hon­orary award. The first was Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards.

At the con­fer­ence, 15 "up and com­ing" en­gi­neer­ing stu­dents would be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to present their fi­nal-year projects to em­ploy­ers who would be part of the au­di­ence. "The youth fo­rum is de­signed to give en­gi­neer­ing stu­dents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to present their work to an au­di­ence com­pris­ing of chief ex­ec­u­tives, hu­man re­source rep­re­sen­ta­tives and oth­er stake­hold­ers in the en­er­gy and non-en­er­gy sec­tors, so they can se­lect prospec­tive em­ploy­ees," Ram­per­sad said. He said the stu­dents did projects on main­te­nance and re­li­a­bil­i­ty pro­grammes which look at safe­ty, health and equip­ment and plant re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

Ram­per­sad, who is an en­gi­neer, is al­so re­spon­si­ble for train­ing tech­ni­cians, crafts­men and oth­ers who want to climb the cor­po­rate lad­der, but can­not do so be­cause they do not pos­sess the qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

"I de­sign the pro­fes­sion­al train­ing cours­es for them to par­tic­i­pate in, once they have com­plet­ed the course, they must sit an as­sess­ment ex­am. The ex­am would tell them whether they passed or met the re­quire­ments.

"These cours­es are ap­proved by UWI Fac­ul­ty of En­gi­neer­ing, the STLE and the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for Con­tin­u­ing Ed­u­ca­tion and Train­ing.

PCS Ni­tro­gen re­sponds

Ian Welch, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, PCS Ni­tro­gen, said the com­pa­ny's suc­cess is due to com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. "While we con­tin­u­ous­ly in­vest in in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions to im­prove our per­for­mance, we nev­er com­pro­mise the safe­ty of our peo­ple and the pro­tec­tion of our en­vi­ron­ment. "Through the util­i­sa­tion of state-of-the-art lu­bri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy, we are able to meet our goals and re­main true to our val­ues," Welch said.

He said there is a train­ing com­po­nent to the com­pa­ny's suc­cess, which in­cludes train­ing in lu­bri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Welch said lu­bri­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy en­ables PCS Ni­tro­gen to im­prove their per­for­mance while keep­ing fo­cus on the safe­ty of peo­ple and the pro­tec­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment. "At the end of the day, even if you ac­quire the best tech­nol­o­gy, your ef­forts will not bear fruit un­less you place it in the hands of the best trained peo­ple," Welch said.