Progressive Distributor - BSA certification

BSA certification sets training standards

Bearings distributors discover the power of certification.

Eighteen months after its launch in March of 1999, the Bearing Specialists Association's (BSA) Certified Bearing Specialist program (CBS) is redefining training and credentials in the industry. The number of program participants has grown to a ground swell, and certification credentials are increasingly important to industry customers.

"In a competitive marketplace, with an international reach, the CBS designation offers our customers a measurable and marketable standard of professional knowledge, a benchmark to 'hang their hat on' so to speak," says Peter Fitzpatrick, Bearings
Specialty Company, chairman of the association's educational services and certification advisory committees.

Fitzpatrick is thrilled about the success of the program. "Our purpose with the CBS program was to instill confidence that certified bearing specialists have the quality of knowledge and critical skills necessary to provide effective service and solutions," he says. "But the program's reception has exceeded even our expectations. Customers are very aware of the benefits of certification and have begun to make it a part of their RFPs."

Curriculum credibilityIndustry leaders believe the reason for the CBS program's growing success is the credibility of the training and testing materials it uses. Charles Nicholson of Bearings & Drives Inc., one of the program's designers, says the curriculum has evolved from the association's first educational materials.

In the late 1970s and early '80s, BSA leaders developed a series of maintenance bulletins highlighting specific issues and distributed by BSA members. At the same time, BSA expanded the bulletins and assembled them into a self-study format known as the In-House Training Guide (IHTG). The IHTG provided essential industry training on sleeve bearings, anti-friction rolling element bearings, unmounted ball bearings, unmounted roller bearings, and mounted bearings. The IHTG has been updated periodically to reflect new technology and the latest industry developments. Many industry companies integrated the guide into their own training programs; others encouraged bearing professionals to pursue the IHTG on a self-study basis.

Sensing a further need, BSA developed a separate lubrication guide to provide generic lubrication information to complement the specifics provided by each bearing manufacturer. The guide became part of the IHTG.

"The Certification program picks up the curriculum initially offered by these educational materials and develops it in an expanded and updated format, pulling features and benefits from each manufacturer plus additional technology developments into an in-depth study," says Nicholson.

When it was ready to develop the CBS program, BSA leadership partnered with a team led by Dr. James Sullivan of Southern Illinois University (SIU) to develop study and test materials that would reflect the professionalism the association expected certification to demonstrate. BSA chose Sullivan and his SIU team because the university has extensive experience in fluid power, which is a related field, and because the university's personnel are familiar with bearings and machine parts.

The first phase of test development involved identifying the representative job responsibilities and tasks of bearing specialists. To accomplish this, SIU reviewed job descriptions and trade association literature to profile the job of bearing specialists and then conducted a developing a curriculum (DACUM) workshop, in which incumbent workers, the certification task force members, performed a job and task analysis. Fifty other bearing specialists independently verified the results from the DACUM workshop.

Next, SIU constructed written test items from the job task analysis and related technical information provided by the advisory committee. These test items were reviewed with the certification task force. BSA then tested volunteers within the industry, using two 100-item pilot tests. The pilot testing provided data to: 1) determine how many test items can be completed within the target completion time; 2) establish the difficulty index of individual test items; 3) establish the discriminating index of individual test items; 4) assess the attractiveness of alternative answers for individual test items; and
5) verify the cut-off score.

SIU made revisions to test items based upon the pilot test data, and constructed two final versions of the bearing specialist certification examination. The written examination is built from a
minimum of 200 multiple-choice test items reviewed by the certification task force to establish validity and cut-off scores.

Who gets certified?
Candidates for the program include inside and outside distribution personnel, service engineers, applications engineers, field service technicians, bearing technical support specialists, and account managers. To be eligible for certification, an applicant must currently be employed full time in the bearing distribution industry, must have at least two additional years employment in the industry, and must have successfully completed BSA's In-House Training Guide.

Candidates prepare for the exam using the bearing specialist self-study guide, or attend review seminars led by subject matter experts within the industry. Sample test items similar to those used on the certification exam have been incorporated throughout the study guide. Pre-tests constructed from sample test items in the study guide assess the readiness of candidates to take the certification exam. Candidates who perform well on pre-tests may not need review training, saving substantial time and money required for further preparation. Similarly, candidates who score in the mid-range of performance would likely benefit from a review training seminar or self-study to prepare for the examination; candidates who score low on pre-tests should consider taking a formal review course.

CBS in the marketplace
In developing the CBS program, BSA believed that certification would provide benefits to the employer, the certified employee and the customer. The program defines bearing specialists as "those individuals with excellent knowledge in selection, application and analysis of bearings." For the certified bearing specialist, the program raises professionalism. For the customer, it documents the industry expertise of its suppliers.

In practice, however, the benefits of the program have exceeded expectations. It promotes a focus on product features and benefits and underlines the professionalism of the employer and employer's staff. It has resulted in new or increased business for some companies.

Certification demonstrates the importance of customer service, particularly in today's increasingly demanding marketplace because the CBS designation instills confidence in the quality of
knowledge and critical skills necessary to provide effective service and solutions. The CBS designation holds the potential for reduced customer costs, increased employer profits and increased employee pride.

CBS how-to
In an effort to make the Certified Bearing Specialist readily available, the National Institute for Certification Engineering Technologies (NICET) administers the CBS exam. NICET has 131 test centers throughout the United States. To accommodate Canadian members, BSA also developed testing contacts in each Canadian province.

BSA is an international service and educational organization of distributors, representing more than 70 companies distributing factory-warranted ball-, roller-, and anti-friction bearings. For more information on BSA's CBS program, contact the BSA office at 630/858-3838; fax 630/790-3095; e-mail or visit the Association's homepage at www.bsahome.org.