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AIMS education advisory committee offers insight

Mark Moore

Uremet Corp. AIMS president
mark@uremet.com

Last month, I introduced the AIMS education advisory board members. This month, I want to highlight some of the hard work that they have done over the past year. The AEAB was given the mission of evaluating the AIMS educational programs and providing feedback designed to improve those programs.

Over the course of several meetings the AEAB has developed a list of suggestions for both short-term and long term goals for AIMS. After reviewing their reports, I would like to share a few of the goals and ideas that we are pursuing for the future of AIMS.

The AEAB determined that the one of the critical needs in amusement industry is to develop a standard of training and evaluation. Currently, most parks develop their own training programs.

While AIMS provides training at its annual seminar, it is not possible or practical for most parks to send every employee to attend even on a rotating basis. The members of the AEAB expressed the need to develop a “Train the Trainer” program.

This program would provide industry trainers with a standardized method of teaching the knowledge and skills required for maintenance and operations technicians in the amusement industry. AIMS certified trainers would be able to take these methods back to their parks and provide their park’s employees with AIMS course training, CEU’s and certification as part of their onsite training programs. This program would increase the number of trained technicians in the industry while providing a level of standardization not currently available.

Another suggestion from the advisory board is to develop a program to provide in depth training in specialty areas such as American Welding Society.

These programs would emphasize the skills and handson training necessary to obtain proficiency and expertise in a chosen specialty. Currently AIMS offers three levels of certification for operations and maintenance technicians, and one level of water certification. These new programs would create on-going training opportunities for the industry and would provide a way to develop an industry standard of expertise in critical areas.

These suggestions are only a few examples of innovative and insightful feedback we have received from the AIMS education advisory board. As an organization, we are hard at work developing the programs that we know will improve the overall safety of the amusement industry. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the volunteers who comprise the AEAB for their hard work and dedication.

Until then I wish everyone good health, and a successful safe season.

AIMS and ASTM F-24 committee have rich amusement history together

Editor’s Note: Members of AIMS, from its early days as AREA through today, have been very involved in the process of writing safety standards for the amusement industry ever since the need for standards within the industry was recognized. ASTM became the association through which these early AIMS leaders worked with others within the industry to help promote safety through standardization. AIMS members continue to hold leadership positions within the ASTM F-24 committee with the past chairperson and current chairperson of ASTM F-24 being past presidents of AIMS. AIMS encourages all its members to be involved in the process of making our industry safer and working for standardization is one way to do this. By participating in the standard writing process AIMS members have direct input into those safety items that affect how their companies do business.

Jim Seay

AIMS board member and ASTM F-24 committee chairman
jseay@premier-rides.com

More than 30 years ago, a number of individuals who were passionate about amusement ride safety came together to form the ASTM International F-24 technical committee on amusement rides and devices. That group of dedicated fixed and mobile park operators and ride manufacturers, some of whom still participate to this very day, decided the industry needed a set of consistent standards that could be used industry wide. Their vision was a strong and worthy one. Combining their knowledge with that of regulators, safety consultants, consumer advocates and other stakeholders, a set of standards was developed and has been consistently reviewed and updated since resulting in the globally recognized product available today. The standards are now part of the regulatory process in most states in the U.S. and are being adopted rapidly in many locations around the world including Canada, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

The scope of ASTM F-24 committee is the development of standard methods of test, performance specifications, definitions, maintenance, operations, and practices and guides for amusement rides and devices. ASTM F-24 consists of the following subcommittees:

•F-24.10 Test Methods

•F-24.20 Specifications and Terminology

•F-24.24 Design and Manufacture •F-24.30 Maintenance and Inspection

•F-24.40 Operations

•F-24.60 Special Rides/ Attractions

•F-24.70 Water Related Amusement Rides and Devices

•F-24.80 Harmonization

•F-24.90 Executive

ASTM F-24 represents the most open amusement ride safety standard development process in the world. Membership is open to all and for a nominal cost one gains the opportunity of direct committee participation and members can electronically receive current standards including updates as they are published. A significant amount of the committee work is accomplished during two extended meetings, one in February and one in October. On average one to two hundred people attend each of the meetings. Typically other safety related organizations also plan their meetings for when ASTM meets. As an example, the IAAPA safety committee brings IAAPA safety experts from around the world to meet and review safety concerns of the industry. Additionally, the AIMS advisory board, which is made up of leaders of the industry on the operational side of the business, meets to review educational goals for the AIMS Safety Seminar. By having the meetings collocated, participants can also be part of the ASTM process making the quality of the meetings that much higher. The committee work continues after the meetings due to highly innovative tools made available at no cost by ASTM which make productive virtual meetings possible.

It is important to note that the ASTM process by design is focused on ensuring every individual’s opinion is heard and vetted. The documents produced are consensus standards and a single vote can stop the process or at the very least require an open format discussion of each issue and concern. Much of the committee meetings are spent reviewing individual input to proposed language and it is more often than not that the reviews result in modifications to the language to incorporate various input.

There are presently 23 countries actively participating in the ASTM effort with more coming on line each year. As a sign of its effort to take in global input, F-24 held its first international meeting this past fall in a well attended session held at the EAS show in Munich. This coming fall the regularly scheduled October meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada in part as recognition for a very significant effort made by the Canadian members to adopt F-24 into their regulatory works.

ASTM F-24’s goal is to provide a detailed set of safety standards that incorporate international input that allows ease of use around the world. All are encouraged to participate in this important voluntary effort.

For more information on ASTM visit their Web site at: www.astm.org.

Space for this AIMS page is provided courtesy of Amusement Today as a corporate partner of AIMS Intl. Content is provided by AT & AIMS. Please direct comments to info@aimsintl.org