Taking automotive training to the tropics

NMIT Te Pūkenga Automotive Programme Coordinator Barry Paterson was recently asked to put together a 3-day training seminar on diesel exhaust gas aftertreatment systems for a team of young technicians in Apia, Samoa.

Over three days in June, at the Autosaver Samoa service station, Barry steered the technicians through the intricacies of diesel soot particulate filtration, exhaust gas recirculation and AdBlue (a diesel exhaust fluid that helps reduce harmful emissions from diesel engines).

“It was a challenge going from 15 degrees in Nelson to 32 degrees working in an open workshop,” Barry says, “but they were an awesome bunch of young techs and we had a lot of fun over the three days.”

Barry was able to take some diagnostic equipment with him to help with the training but says he was pretty limited in what he could take.

“Fortunately, the guys had saved up some vehicles that had major faults occurring in the exhaust aftertreatment systems that they hadn’t been able to fix, so I was able to use those for training— and they were able to sort the problems at the same time.”

Barry is now developing training for the technicians in electric and hybrid vehicles, vehicle heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems which will be delivered next year.

“We are also planning to help their technical college tutors review their national qualifications and competency standards.”

As Samoa’s light vehicle and light commercial vehicle fleets are similar to New Zealand's, Barry has given them a copy of NMIT’s current light vehicle online google classrooms which they can incorporate into their training.

“It was the first time I’ve been to Samoa and the people I was working with were awesome hosts — I’m really looking forward to going back.”

Barry’s flights, accommodation, and the training were sponsored by Repco.