INTERNATIONAL NEWS
9
Four pillars of plumbing programme:
plumbing industry frameworks
Forums, surveys, and the 2019 World Plumbing Conference.
The World Plumbing Council (WPC) has
launched an initiative aimed at answering
the question: what is the best way to build a
plumbing industry?
The initiative, administered by the WPC, will create
a storehouse of knowledge about the industry
frameworks of plumbing industries worldwide.
First steps
A 19 October 2017 forum in Abu Dhabi will be
the first event in the Four Pillars programme. It
will take place in conjunction with a WPC General
Meeting following the conclusion of competitions
at the 2017 WorldSkills Competition. (The forum’s
timing will allow participants to also attend the
Closing Ceremony of the WorldSkills Competition
in the evening of 19 October.)
Subsequent to the Conference, WPC will ensure
it makes an ongoing contribution by maintaining
and further developing this unique storehouse
of knowledge and providing advice and policy
statements on these industry issues.
The knowledge gathering planned over the
next two years will first focus on gaining
clear descriptions of the many and varied
current frameworks for plumbing industries in
jurisdictions globally, by asking local plumbing
industries to generate case studies, supported
by forums and survey instruments. The Abu Dhabi Forum will consist of case studies
and cross-comparisons addressing ‘What should
the training requirements be for a plumbing
industry?’. It will show the different ways this
question has been answered across several
different countries and jurisdictions.
Participants in the programme will also have the
opportunity to propose changed frameworks;
that is, the knowledge gathered will encompass
both what is and what participants think industry
frameworks should be. WPC will arrange a series of forums and
surveys over the two plus years leading up to
the Conference to generate case studies and
other research concerning the above and related
questions across the four proposed streams.
The first phase of the initiative will culminate in a
World Plumbing Conference in September 2019
in Australia, with ‘What is the best way to build a
plumbing industry?’ as its core theme. For example, WPC, with its members and other
stakeholders, intends holding a forum in the US
in 2018 addressing ‘How can we best ensure
products used by a plumbing industry meet at
least minimum standards?’.
The conference will primarily consist of per
jurisdiction case studies and cross-comparisons
addressing questions such as:
• What should be the training requirements for
a plumbing industry?
• How can we best ensure work practices
in a plumbing industry meet at least
minimum standards? What should those
standa rds be?
• How can we best ensure products used
by a plumbing industry meet at least
minimum standards? Again, what should the
standards be?
• How can the customers of a plumbing
industry gain redress if work is faulty? How
can plumbing industry participants gain
protection against commercial risk?
These and related questions will be clustered into
four streams at the 2019 Conference:
• Participation
• Practices
• Products
• Protection.
We are describing these four streams as the ‘Four
Pillars of Plumbing’.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
Benefits
The storehouse of knowledge developed through
this two plus year process will subsequently
be made available to WPC members and other
stakeholders to support their efforts to create
and further develop effective frameworks for
plumbing industries.
The World Plumbing Council believes plumbing
industries worldwide will learn and progress by
seeing the industry framework ideas that others
have in place, have tested, or are proposing.
The opportunity for valuable lessons are
perhaps most obvious in situations where
plumbing industries are still in early stages of
development, but countries that already have
established frameworks will also gain ideas and
data about further improvements.
The World Plumbing Council believes an
extensive global network of plumbing industries
and stakeholders will be created through the
knowledge gathering process at the heart of
the Four Pillars programme. Participants in this
new network will, with the support of the WPC,
be able to draw on the network’s contacts and
resources into the future. PA
Later in 2018 and during 2019, prior to the
September Conference, WPC will arrange at
least two more forums on the Practices and
Protection dimensions of plumbing industry
frameworks. Ideally, there will be sufficient
interest to hold substantially more than four
forums, and surveys and other work addressing
the four streams will proceed in parallel globally
over the next two years.
For each forum, WPC will ask members and
other stakeholders to produce case studies for
their respective countries or jurisdictions. This
knowledge base can then be drawn upon and
augmented as needed for the Conference.
WPC will lead the global activity, generating case
studies by providing guidance on case study
dimensions, survey instruments, examples,
suggestions about forming working groups, and
so forth.
WPC encourages members and others
interested in the topics to form local committees
and working groups to generate the per-
jurisdiction case studies.
September 2017 Volume 23 I Number 7