On behalf of African NDT Centre :

2018, Chairmanship of BRICS moved to South Africa, and with South Africa having hosted the BRICS Leadership Summit and the BRICS Business Council Meetings on 22 & 23 July 2018, the South African Skills Development Working Group (SDWG) agreed to host the second BRICS Future Skills (FS) Challenge & Cultural Exchange from 28 September to 6 October 2018 at Gallagher Convention Centre.
The event showcased transforming and emerging digital and manufacturing vocational skill areas to BRICS Business Council Members, Government, Public and Private Higher Education Providers and the Youth. The goal was to influence the education and training agenda of the future so as to support business competitiveness, young people’s employability and a collaboration amongst BRICS Countries to align skills development initiatives and standards to the demands posed by Industry 4.0.
The FS Challenge saw participants below the age of 35 being given specific projects/ tasks to be completed within given deadlines. Both the technical and soft skills competence of the FS Challenge were assessed by Skills Specialists from participating BRICS Countries. One of the areas highlighted in the challenge was transportation, specifically aviation. Within this area, three challenges were set up, namely, Aircraft Composites, Aircraft Sheet Metal and Non-Destructive Testing. AFRICAN NDT CENTRE (PTY) LTD were approached to provide the South African specialists for the NDT aspect of the challenge, three specialists were selected (Abdur-Rahman Mahomed, Andre Klaassens and Evashan Maistry-Thavar), their task was to create a challenge, set it up, arrange participants and finally oversee and judge the challenge itself.
Due to the late introduction on NDT to the challenge, international interest in the NDT challenge was not received. This, however, did not dampen the spirits on the specialists who were determined to introduce NDT in South Africa at a world scale event. They sought the interest of South African NDT companies and initially received a massive, and very enthusiastic, response from the NDT industry with five companies willing to send participants. Unfortunately, as the time drew closer, work constraints resulted in two of the five companies having to pull their participants.
Nonetheless, the challenge continued with teams from Stanley Inspection, National NDT, and Ultraspec participating in the challenge. The teams were brought to Midrand, Johannesburg all expenses paid and were introduced to what it feels like to participate in an international event. Besides the challenge itself, teams were taken on excursions to Lion Park, the Apartheid Museum and Nelson Mandela’s house. They also attended a Gala dinner where the keynote speaker was Minister of Higher Education, Naledi Pandor.
With regards to the challenge itself, participants were given composite aircraft parts and were required to design a PAUT, as well as, a conventional UT inspection system and technique to inspect the components. They then had to inspect to their technique and finally report their results.
The challenge specialists were aware that the participants came from different companies who generally compete for projects and work and were expecting a bit of tension, however, were pleasantly surprised to see participants from all companies sitting down with each other and discussing ideas as well as observing how their counterparts approached the tasks. This was unexpected but a delightful surprise to see the youth transcending all apparent differences.
Each team understood their end goal but approached it differently. Some of the approach lead to faster initial progress and tapered towards the end, with other teams starting of slow and methodical and ramping up to the finale.
All teams were graded and scored higher than any of the specialist’s predictions going into the challenge with the average of all the teams scoring an A++ grade.
It was also noted that nationals from both Russia, Brazil and India showed interest in the NDT challenge, both parties indicated that, had they known NDT was a challenge being presented, they would have made both experts and participants available. There were even enquiries as to whether NDT would feature in the WORLD SKILLS challenge. The overall feel is that with major MRO industries emerging in all BRICS countries, NDT will become quite a popular challenge, should it be properly facilitated.
Each team that participated had the opportunity to learn two separate skills.
The first being how to inspect carbon fibre components using Non-Destructive Testing. This is not a skill that is widely available at present. The second skill was learning to conduct research and development on an unknown part. None of them had any experience testing non-metallic parts. They all had to, systematically, go through several stages in order to generate an inspection. The skills challenge allowed them to do this in a safe environment under the supervision of industry specialists.
Both of these skills will aid these candidates well into their futures. The aim of the challenge was to equip the youth of the future with skills that they can utilise and potentially pass on for years to come and it is the belief of the specialists that this was achieved.

African NDT Centre would like to thank the companies for making the following teams available for this most interesting event:
STANLEY INSPECTION: Shaun Meerholz, Nathan Dunn
NATIONAL NDT: Salesh Mandenjith, Marlon Naidoo, Aveer Singh
ULTRASPEC: Kgotso Sepotokele, Junaid Bhayat.