Concrete Basics: Concrete--The Skills Inventory

Mr S.M.Vaidya, a gold medalist in struct

ural engineering from IIT Madras began his career with prestigious Indian Railway Service of Civil Engineers (IRSE) in 1982. He quit the government service in 2001 to take up challenging assignments in private sector with some of the India’s largest & most reputed infrastructure companies. He now works as a free lance consultant in Civil Engineering and Construction technology. Considered an authority on Concrete Theory & Practice, Mr Vaidya will be writing a Series of thought provoking articles on Concrete. You can mail your feedback on the article through Contact Us form.

Thinkcrete--An initiative to promote Concrete Thoughts by Mr. S.M.Vaidya

In the arena of training, we focus on three inter-related aspects of human competence called Knowledge, skills and attitude. Without adequate knowledge, right skills cannot be acquired and good attitude does not work. Knowledge without skills is theoretical and right knowledge and skills can be wasted if not applied to the right end (attitude). Thus each has its own significance in making the holder of these traits as truly competent. However, in this article, I wish to focus on ‘skills’ and propose an inventory of skills related to concrete construction.

Skill, simply defined, is the ‘ability’ to carry out a task. It emphasizes action and not mere knowledge. Since concrete technology is an eminently practical science, skill plays an important role in the ability of an individual or an organization in producing good concrete. Not everybody needs to be able to do everything; we all have specific roles to play. Here is my view on who should be able to do what. Look at the list and depending on what you are [or what you aspire to be] make a self assessment. Organizations could use this frame work to assess skills available with their Engineers and develop training workshops for bridging the gaps.

The Concrete Skills inventory: Specific Skills required by construction officials for 8 main areas

1. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Specific Skill	Required by
Specific Skill	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
Ability to write technical specs	Yes	May Be	No	No
Ability to understand tech specs	Yes	Yes	Yes	Why Not
Ability to identify difference between tech specs & applicable codes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Ability to decide applicability, change specs. Etc.	Yes	May Be	No	No
2. CONCRETE MIX DESIGN
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
Decide requirement of properties & select materials as in put to mix design	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Carry out mix design calculations	Yes	Yes	No	No
Carry out lab trials of the designed mixes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Approve mix design	Yes	Yes	No	No
Translate design mix into batch quantities & adjust for moisture	Na	Yes	Yes	Yes
3. PLANNING
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
Ability to develop detailed pour plans concrete pours	Yes	Why Not	Yes	May Be
4. CONCRETING RESOURCES
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
To calibrate batching plants	No	Yes	Yes	No
To test batching plants / mixer efficiency	No	Yes	Yes	No
Inspect and pre qualify RMC vendors	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
5. Materials
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
To test / select / approve source of materials	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
To conduct routine test on materials	Na	Yes	Why Not	Yes
To conduct special advance tests	Na	Yes	No	No
To develop sampling and testing plans	Yes	Yes	No	No
6. PRODUCTION
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
Ability to inspect pre pour arrangements and approve pour (pour card )	Na	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to supervise concreting operations from mixing till finishing & curing	Na	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to troubleshoot mistakes/unexpected events	Yes	Yes	Why Not	No
Ability to draw samples, conduct slump test	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to interpret slump test resultand take required action	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Ability to conduct test of concrete temperature	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to develop compressive strength test sampling plan	Yes	Yes	No	No
Ability to sample concrete and prepare cube samples	Na	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to troubleshoot in case of any untoward incident	Yes	Yes	Why Not	No
7. POST PRODUCTION
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
Ability to decide stripping time	Yes	Yes	Yes	Why Not
Ability to test cube samples	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ability to interpet test results	Yes	Yes	Why Not	No
Ability to troubleshhot in case of inadequate strength result	Yes	Why Not	No	No
8. General
	Concrete Expert	QA/QC In-Charge	Site Engineers	Foremen / Lab Technician
To promote all round improvement in concrete construction by training	Yes	No	No	No
To generate new ideas and test/assess new applications related to concrete technology	Yes	No	No	No

The inventory most probably is not exhaustive; readers may add any specific requirement that has been missed out or add another group of Engineers. If one wants to complicate the matter, each skill could also be graded to have different levels of abilities! Finally, everyone may have their opinion on who should have what skill. If indeed those practicing concrete production have such diversity of views, the basic idea behind this article would have been served; that is to bring the subject in focus and provoke thoughts about it!

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