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Post by ncynotts on Apr 27, 2006 20:25:39 GMT
Did anyone receive any ET or fallback training from Siemens (or vosa)? I accept that this is a relatively new system and there will be problems, but how could such an important issue be missed from the initial training? We were completely in the dark on Tuesday, and it took over half the day to get up and running again. Every garage I have spoken to has done things differently. Maybe this should be included in the refresher coarse in the future. We are doing over 20 tests per day, and have now caught up on the paperwork, by starting at 6am and working to 9pm. My wife is practically ready to divorce me, and the kids have forgotten what I look like, the dogs happy, he gets my dinner.
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Post by ianwills on Apr 27, 2006 20:50:16 GMT
no no no no
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graham
Nominated Tester
Posts: 331
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Post by graham on Apr 27, 2006 21:21:08 GMT
The relevant part I put into the email I sent to Matters of Testing.
"What I find disturbing about this prolonged failure was the lack of information and help. This is probably the first time many of us have had to use emergency testing. Where was the information of how to do it? Nothing of substance said at training. If I remember correctly no Special Notice issued, nothing in this magazine, a few pages in the user manual, that's all."
Graham
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spanner
Nominated Tester
Posts: 191
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Post by spanner on Apr 27, 2006 21:39:37 GMT
We got no information at all about it. This too is our first encounter with it and was first time we'd seen the emergency paper. Up till now the few times there has been problems we've simply waited for it to come back online but this time being down for so long we were forced to break open the ET pack. The absense of anyone to talk to on helpdesk is the biggest f**k up of all.
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Post by ammer1t on Apr 27, 2006 22:19:08 GMT
I really have to wonder if they have tried turning it on and off again
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spanner
Nominated Tester
Posts: 191
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Post by spanner on Apr 27, 2006 22:31:59 GMT
I really have to wonder if they have tried turning it on and off again ;D now theres a thought ;D
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motdave
Nominated Tester
Posts: 242
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Post by motdave on Apr 27, 2006 22:28:29 GMT
We got no information at all about it. This too is our first encounter with it and was first time we'd seen the emergency paper. Up till now the few times there has been problems we've simply waited for it to come back online but this time being down for so long we were forced to break open the ET pack. The absense of anyone to talk to on helpdesk is the biggest f**k up of all. My ET VT20 book had more cancellations than tests to begin with! I opened it up to find there was no carbon, so I cut an A4 sheet of carbn paper & wrote out the first ET VT20... When I came to write out the second one, I found to my horror that I had gone through 4 other pages with my heavy handwriting! Nothing to say the book was made of 'No Carbon Required' paper. Grrr
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graham
Nominated Tester
Posts: 331
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Post by graham on Apr 27, 2006 22:52:44 GMT
Out of intersest was everyone elses numbered very peculiar. ours jumped about 6 - 10 numbers between certs.
Graham
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motdave
Nominated Tester
Posts: 242
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Post by motdave on Apr 27, 2006 22:58:26 GMT
Out of intersest was everyone elses numbered very peculiar. ours jumped about 6 - 10 numbers between certs. Graham The last digit seems to be the 'checksum'. A security feature. If you look at the rest of the number, you may have something like: 1. 7Q3200004 2. 7Q3200016 3. 7Q3200025 4. 7Q3200030 5. 7Q3200041 Ignore the last digit, and the serial numbers do increase in order.
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graham
Nominated Tester
Posts: 331
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Post by graham on Apr 27, 2006 23:14:48 GMT
Cheers, your answer makes sense, a lot more sense than the adding of it. Just makes it more difficult filling in the mini register etc.
Graham
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spanner
Nominated Tester
Posts: 191
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Post by spanner on Apr 27, 2006 23:28:38 GMT
Glad to see someone else who mucked up with the carbon copy. Although I didnt use a bit of carbon paper I was concentrating too much in filling it in correctly and failed to put the piece of cardboard in between. I had to get the eraser out and rub a few pages clear. I too noticed the numbering because at first I thought I'd skipped a few pages. Can't wait for our VOSA man to come round for a visit, if he doesn't smoke now he'll be starting by the time he leaves.
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Roger
VTS Site Manager
Posts: 46
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Post by Roger on Apr 28, 2006 0:39:06 GMT
Greetings everyone,
I was a Siemens onsite trainer for 3 months Nov, Dec and Jan 06.
I've been asked to give you some background about the training which I am more than willing to do. I am now speaking as Joe Public and have no connections with Siemens, VOSA or the MOT trade.
A bit of background...
Applicants for the position of Trainer must have had prior experience of giving training sessions.
Before going out on the road we had to spend a week in Birmingham being taught the system, this consisted of...
2 days going through the computer based tutorials (same ones as on your VTS Device). Then a day on a live system to try it out with real info, then we were given a test paper similar to those that you did. On passing this we were then shown how to deliver the onsite training which consisted of following a carefully choreographed script that we had to deliver without deviation. Every part of this script was timed and if done correctly would start at 9am, 1 hour for lunch and conclude at 5pm. Last day in Birmingham was to deilver a short section of the script to Siemens assesors and on passing we got the keys to the white van. First two days on the job was to go out onsite with an existing trainer to observe and then for him to observe you, then you were flying solo.
The final part of the script was detailed instruction on testing in fallback where the fault was due to local issues, eg. a broken VTS Device or your phone line was iffy etc. whereby the Service desk entered results on your behalf and when your kit was fixed you verified the information.
We were not scripted to give detailed training in ET. Rather, we were to tell you to review the relevant sections in the manuals. I gave a very brief overview (ie. get the recorded message ET number, break open the ET pad, fill them in and record on the VTS device when the system came back) then picked up the Admin and VTS User guides and pointed to the chapters and said please read these and aquaint yourselves with the procedures because it would be rare that you would need them and that any detailed training would be forgotten come the time ET should be required. Which seemed fair enough, the last thing I expected was a major outage on a system that prior to me starting was already 8 months live and hopefuly debugged.
I can only assume that all trainers did the full session and covered everything in the script right up to the point of reading up on ET procedures. You all got 9am to 5pm from me and sometimes the odd 6pm! There were 200 or so trainers and we were meant to be quality checked by an un announced visit to one of our training days - mine came a couple of weeks before the end (I passed).
You have my full sympathy in this current situation. All you need is some information telling you what the issues are, what was been done, when it would be resolved and what you should be doing in the meantime. All this could be done via some web based message facility or something like a dedicated phone number for listening to a recorded status message.
I'm sure arses somewhere are being kicked and that a repeat situation will not be happening in the near future. So tough it out and don't even think about quitting the MOT scheme.
Good luck everyone.
Rgds Roger
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spanner
Nominated Tester
Posts: 191
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Post by spanner on Apr 28, 2006 6:52:46 GMT
Our trainer I thought was good but by end of the day him and VOSA man couldn't get out of there fast enough. I don't recall anything other than them saying "DO NOT OPEN THIS PAD UNLESS VOSA GIVE YOU PERMISSION"
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Rob
Nominated Tester
Posts: 279
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Post by Rob on Apr 28, 2006 6:58:52 GMT
Cheers Roger, that's very interesting, I'm not so sure about the "repeat situation will not be happening in the near future" bit. With Siemens record it'll probably be when they next upgrade the software. Our VE told us when we went live that the probability of us having to use the ET pack was virtually nil, so not to worry about it. I shall be having a few choice words with him when he next pays us a visit. I think the problem with the MOT system in general at the moment is that there's too many side issues. It wouldn't have hurt VOSA/Siemens to have given the trainers a dummy ET pad, so we actually knew what it looked like and knew how to work the system when it all went tits up. I wonder if anyone knows if there are financial penalties for Siemens when the system is down for any length of time, if there aren't there should be.
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daveh
Authorised Examiner
My snooker room
Posts: 87
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Post by daveh on Apr 28, 2006 9:25:39 GMT
Don't forget that you can always press "F5" on your keyboard and see the "training" module on how to deal with emergency testing.
Regards DaveH
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graham
Nominated Tester
Posts: 331
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Post by graham on Apr 28, 2006 9:41:59 GMT
Don't forget that you can always press "F5" on your keyboard and see the "training" module on how to deal with emergency testing. Regards DaveH Clever B ;D Graham
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