Sarens training centre gets revamped

Sarens training centre achieved a next big milestone at the end of 2022. After achieving our ECOL certificate to give European Crane Operator License trainings to our employees in 2021, we revamped our centre in 2022 increasing our capacity both for classroom and practical crane training operations and introducing the Liebherr LTM 1030-2.1 according to current standard EN 13000 and full option for live training sessions.

The revamped centre was reopened with an open day giving interested individuals and companies the chance to explore the centre and discover the range of training courses – and also take the opportunity to sit in a crane themselves.

Since 2017, Sarens has its own in-house training center, located at the Sarens yard in Wolvertem, Belgium. The training center primarily exists to provide the required trainings to the Sarens employees. In addition we can provide trainings for our clients as well. We strive for a perfect balance between theoretical and applied knowledge, including practical experience, so that the challenges of today and tomorrow can be met in a professional and correct manner.

Sarens ECOL centre is the first centre in Belgium and the fourth worldwide ever, that will give the ECOL courses. In the heavy lifting industry, ECOL stands for European Crane Operator License, and is the result of an ESTA initiative to investigate how a European craft proficiency certificate for crane operators can be established for the industry.

The Sarens training center is recognised as a training and examination center for training courses in the context of high risk tasks according to BeSaCC-VCA, for which the training center has successfully undergone audits by QFor.

With the addition of ECOL (European Crane Operator Licence) to the training center courses, Sarens supports and promotes the guarantee of professional competences and the importance of a uniform certificate for crane operators within Europe.

Sarens opens the training center for clients and contractors. We offer our knowledge, experience, and expertise as an additional service in heavy lifting and transport!

Line Rigo, RDTS Manager, Sarens says, “By training our own employees, we can exceed the minimum requirements, and better assess and strengthen competencies. Ultimately, our goal is to offer training of the highest quality.” She adds, “While other training centres might focus only on complying with imposed terms, we always set higher standards for our trainees. We do this by combining the imposed terms with our assessment of what the person who holds this license or certificate should be able to do within a Sarens Heavy Lifting context which distinguishes us from external training centres.”

The revamped centre excels with:

· Reorganisation of our location to optimise and create enough space for practical trainings.

· Expansion of container units to provide additional class rooms to increase capacity and a new lunch room. There are two parallel class rooms which gives us a capacity of 12 participants for both trainings.

· The group size is limited to guarantee a qualitative training.

· A Liebherr LTM 1030-2.1 is added to training centre according to current standard EN 13000 and full option: vario-base, lift planner, and remote control.

· The current courses are expanded - training TCVT W4-01 for mobile crane operator, refresher training TCVT modules for experienced mobile crane operators, and training SPMT operator K24ST.

· Our approach: custom training programs – for new riggers a combination of different trainings to be followed more efficiently as a rigger training set and be prepared for their first site experience.

· In 2022 our trainers have achieved TCVT recognition and the terrain of the training center has been approved as an examination location, which allows us to expand our offer to include the TCVT-RA W4-01 training and refresher courses.