{"id":24447,"date":"2022-12-27T01:25:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-27T01:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=24447"},"modified":"2022-12-27T01:25:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-27T01:25:59","slug":"drone-specialists-visit-cumbria-nuclear-team-to-help-build-standards-across-range-of-uk-industries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/international-news\/drone-specialists-visit-cumbria-nuclear-team-to-help-build-standards-across-range-of-uk-industries\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Drone Specialists Visit Cumbria Nuclear Team to Help Build Standards Across Range of UK Industries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – From left:\u00c2\u00a0 Amanda Smith, Sellafield’s UAV Equipment Program Lead; Reg Rudd, ECITB product development manager; Helen Craig, ECITB product development manager; Kevin Westwood, Managing Director of Kevin D Westwood Associates, and Sam Jay, UAV Pilot \/ Equipment Engineer at Sellafield Ltd pictured at Sellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence at Cleator Moor, Cumbria.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drone specialists who have worked on industrial sites all\nover the world met in West Cumbria to learn from the area\u2019s nuclear site\npioneers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the visit to Sellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre\nof Excellence was to build on the learning of the organization\u2019s Unmanned\nAerial Vehicle (UAV) team to help develop industry training standards for the\nuse of drones on all sites across the UK including engineering, construction,\nnuclear and the water industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the first time the Engineering Construction\nIndustry Training Board\u2019s drone standards working group had visited\nSellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence at Cleator Moor. They also\nvisited Sellafield site to see the working environment first-hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ECITB works with employers and training providers to\ngive the engineering construction industry workforce the skills it needs to\nmeet the challenges of the future. Approximately 300 companies are on the ECITB\nregister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Smith, UAV Equipment Program Lead, Remote\nTechnologies Group, which includes UAVs, ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) and\nRobotics, said: \u201cIt\u2019s great to see experts in the field coming to visit us to\nlearn how we have developed the use of UAVs at Sellafield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s also pleasing for all the team here to be recognized\nin this way, and to know that their knowledge, expertise and learning is\nhelping to shape training standards in a diverse range of industries across the\nwhole country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda and her team of highly skilled equipment engineers\nand remote pilots flew more than 200 asset inspection flights in 2021\ndelivering in excess of \u00a35m cost avoidance savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the flights were at Sellafield. But leading the way\nin UAV innovation in the UK nuclear industry, Amanda\u2019s team has also carried\nout flights at other Nuclear Decommissioning Authority sites at Bradwell,\nEssex, and Sizewell in Suffolk. Sellafield\u2019s ROV team have also carried out\nwork at Dounreay in Caithness, Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the visit Reg Rudd and Helen Craig, both ECITB\nproduct development managers, and Kevin Westwood, Managing Director of Kevin D\nWestwood Associates, subject matter expert and consultant from Teesside,\nbrought their perspective of working with industries all over the world to the\ndiscussion with Amanda and her Sellafield team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reg said: \u201cOil and gas was one of the first industries to\ntake advantage of ROVs by using subsea equipment. Other industries have now\nstarted to catch up.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been brilliant to see what Amanda and the team are\nachieving here in a nuclear industry environment at Sellafield. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe experience here is transferable to other industries and\nhelps us develop training standards for certification across all sectors for\npeople who fly drones, or who manage the operation of drones. A visit like this\nenables us to perform the role of the intelligent client.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin has worked in 42 different countries around the world\nincluding with some of the biggest names in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said: \u201cThis visit provides a window on how \u2018best in\nclass\u2019 in-house drone programs are being run. Sellafield is an exemplar on how\nthis technology can be applied to other high hazard environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOperating drones helps reduce risk when carrying out tasks\nin a range of environments from nuclear sites to windfarms. It can be critical\nto spotting defects as part of asset integrity management programs, mapping to\nassist in accurate GIS and digital twin development or providing situational\nawareness to assist in emergency response operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAdopting the use of drones helps give businesses the edge.\nThey allow industry to achieve operations safer, quicker and smarter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence recently\nhosted a national COMIT2drones (C2D) event, where representatives from a range\nof industries and SMEs shared ideas on opportunities to deploy the latest drone\ntechnology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Power Up Sellafield event attracted 30 representatives\nfrom across the UK, including drone specialists such Cyberhawk, Vantage UAV\nGroup, COPTRZ, and Herotech8, as well as industry representatives such as\nJacobs, Kier and National Highways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence, which has\nbecome a hub for multi-industry visits, is based at Leconfield Industrial Estate\nwhere iSH (Industrial Solutions Hub) plans to develop a program of\ncross-industry collaboration and innovation which will lead to 700 new jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – From left:\u00c2\u00a0 Amanda Smith, Sellafield’s UAV Equipment Program Lead; Reg Rudd, ECITB product development manager; Helen Craig, ECITB product development manager; Kevin Westwood, Managing Director of Kevin D Westwood Associates, and Sam Jay, UAV Pilot \/ Equipment Engineer at Sellafield Ltd pictured at Sellafield\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence at Cleator Moor, Cumbria. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Remote-Technologies-UK-story-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24449,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24447\/revisions\/24449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}