Continuously improving the performance of energy transportation in Canada.

Construction Best Practices

The CEPA Foundation is collaborating on construction best practices that can provide safety, environmental or regulatory benefits to the industry, while increasing trust with landowners, regulators and the public, specifically:

• Developing strategies and/or a best practice document on preventing dents and ovality (flattening) to a pipe during construction
• Focusing on developing high-value best practices for welding procedures
• Developing guidelines that outline the various stages of construction and what stakeholders can expect during each stage
• Creating a reference document that outlines the materials, permits, agreements and other considerations required prior to starting construction.

Employee attraction and retention

• In partnership with the Young Pipeliners Association of Canada (YPAC), the CEPA Foundation is participating in career fairs to share employment opportunities across CEPA Foundation member companies.
• Developing a speakers program with individuals from member companies visiting schools and similar forums to promote careers in the pipeline industry.

Knowledge transfer

• Establishing a structure to facilitate effective ongoing knowledge transfer within the CEPA Foundation. The top areas that require effective knowledge transfer have been identified as specialized areas, safe construction procedures and equipment operators.

Pipeline Construction Safety Roundtable

• Developing a resource for member companies that would include easily accessible metrics, industry information, standards and best practices.
• Creating a repository for company- and incident-specific data to be used by member companies.
• Identifying a mechanism to classify, post and share key safety metrics across all member companies.

Pipeline Inspector Certification Program

• Updating and maintain the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Pipeline Inspector Certification (API 1169) to suit Canadian standards and references.
• Developing training, education programs and technical diplomas, in support of this newly designed training program. This includes using CEPA’s new reference tool, A Practical Guide for Pipeline Construction, which is focused on enhancing the learning experience for pipeline inspectors was published in March 2016.
• Read about the Pipeline Inspector Certification Program

Quality

• Continuing progression of the Quality Network with a specific focus on Quality Definition implementation and collaboration of Quality lessons learned and best practices
• Further developing a quality Best Practices and Lessons Learned program with an individualized ‘lessons learned’ system, which can be customized for each member company
• Further developing the quality Performance Dashboard pilot plan for full release to the membership.

Research and innovation roadmap

• Developing initiatives to increase collaboration between industry members and relevant post-secondary institutions, including:
  • Annual Applied Research Seminar featuring a speaker or panel of speakers discussing one or two key issues per year
  • Online database of industry-specific Canadian university researchers and associated facilities for members to access expertise.

Supply and demand outlook tool

Working with Deloitte, the CEPA Foundation developed an adjustable workforce planning tool to provide an interactive view of the current and future forecasted workforce supply and demand data for the Canadian pipeline industry. This tool is of considerable value to CEPA Foundation members to project market movements in labour. Specifically, the tool was developed to focus on:

• Pipeline industry demand analysis: a detailed view of the demand of critical occupations in the pipeline industry for the upcoming decade
• Pipeline industry supply analysis: an in-depth look at the supply of critical occupations in the pipeline industry for the next 10 years
• Pipeline industry educational scan: a view of the new entrants into the workforce from educational institutions and trade schools, as well as the ability to target recruitment and selection efforts of the pipeline industry
• Pipeline industry gap analysis: an in-depth analysis of surpluses and gaps of critical occupations in the pipeline industry over the next 10 years. The gap analysis also provides a strategic view of the labour market by identifying where pockets of specific talent are expected to be across the country, within the pipeline and other industries

Access the report online here.