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Design Center Training for National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC)Participant Training ProgramTraining dates: April 20th – June 19th, 2015Post-Training Evaluation ReportIn this activity, Energy Policy Program (EPP) successfully delivered the Design Center Trainingprogram for National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) from April 20th – June 19th,2015 at WAPDA House, Lahore. 11 course Design Center Training was given to participantsbelonging from the key departments of NTDC. In order to enhance the capacity building and toempower the NTDC design department, USAID partnered with the National Transmission DispatchCompany (NTDC) at Lahore to fund and organize a seven-week classroom based training oncontemporary software such as AUTOCAD, Power line, PLS Tower, PLS Pole, SAPS, ARCGIS,SAGSEC, Caisson, and Bentley STAAD-Pro, Bentley Sub-Station and Microsoft Project etc. USAIDalso funded the procurement of new hardware and equipment for NTDC design department. As acost share with USAID, NTDC procured new furniture and workstations for its Design departmentwhile establishing professional relationships with NTDC to draw upon after the conclusion of theprogram.Number of Participants trained per course:Sr #Training Course1234567891011Auto CadPLS ProjectBentley STAAD – PROBentley ale1911118101081016416Female113332726806At the end of the training course, post-training evaluations were conducted on June 16 and 17, 2015 atWAPDA House, Lahore with 20 participants, as rest of the participants were absent due to theirinternational trainings and departmental exams. The feedback will be based on the sample size of 20.The participants were given a nine questions post-training evaluation feedback form to explain theirvaluable experience during the Design Center Training. Following are the statistics and quotes fromparticipants’ responses.AID-EPP-I-00-03-00004, AID-391-TO-12-00002

Please tick in appropriate box: 5 outstanding, 4 very good, 3 satisfactory, 2 needsimprovement, 1 did not meet expectationsI. Program RatingRelevance to yourorganization’s work areaStructure of the trainingcoursesTopics covered in the coursesQuality and appropriatenessof course content andmaterialsQuality of Speakers/TrainersTrainers/SpeakerseffectivenessDid not rding to the rounded responses of all participants from the above stated table:1. 60% of the participants rated as very good, 25% of the participants rated “Relevance to yourorganization’s work area” as outstanding whereas, 10% rated satisfactory and 5% felt theneed of improvement.2. 55% of the participants found “Structure of training courses” very good, while 40%participant rated it as satisfactory and 5% of the participants felt the need of improvement.3. 50% participants found the category “Topics covered in the courses” as very good, while45% of them found it satisfactory and 5% felt the topics didn’t meet their expectations.4. 35% found “Quality and appropriateness of course content and materials” very good, while40% found it to be satisfactory, whereas 10% rated it an outstanding content, 10% felt theneed of improvement and 5% felt the content didn’t meet their expectations.5. 35% of the participants felt “Quality of Speakers/Trainers” was very good, 35% rated it assatisfactory, 10% rated it as an outstanding effort by the trainers and 20 % felt the need ofimprovement.6. 40% participant’s rated “Trainers/Speakers effectiveness” as satisfactory, while 30% rated itas very good and 10% found the effectiveness to be outstanding whereas, 20% felt the needof improvement.Please share any observations or comments regarding the NTDC Design Centertrainer/training program/logistics:Participants were asked to check all the courses they have taken during the course of their trainingduration (the number of participant trained per course is mentioned above); followed by questionsto share their observations and comments regarding the trainer, training and logistics. When askedabout the trainer and logistics. When asked; almost all the participants found the training verybeneficial for them w.r.t their departmental work, they elaborated:“NTDC training program will prove to be very helpful in performing the future assignments in efficient andtimely manner by the help of the software”“Training session was very good but enough laptop/computers were not available to all the participants forbetter practice of the course taken”

“Training initiative was very good but the time period was very short as compared to the course contentcovered during the training”“NTDC design center training program was very good. Content and materials were relevant to ourrespective fields. However, time management was not perfect. Training periods were short so we were justgiven the overview of most of the things which cannot help us in our field without the practicalimplementation of the skills learned. But for the introductory level, the training was really informative andhelpful”“Overall the training was good and beneficial. However, the duration for software courses i.e. Bentleysubstation and Auto cad should have been longer to fully capture the knowledge shared. Also, trainer’scommunication skills should have been better, e.g. the communication issues during Bentley substationtraining”Before you received this training, how would you describe your technical knowledge ofdesigning new transmission lines, foundations and grid stations?Keeping in view all the responses it showed that before this training most of the participants weredesigning the transmission lines using the manual techniques and had very limited knowledge as howsoftware can be used to design the same transmission lines. All of them have significantly developedknowledge of transmission lines designing through the software rather than manually, as the quoted:“Before the training, most of us were designing the transmission line using the old manual techniques.Moreover, before the software training the designing of towers, poles and lines were done according to thealready accepted designs. After receiving the training now we can design the towers based on specificrequirements”“After receiving the training we can now design transmission line profiles using PLS CADD and ARCGIS forsurface levels and tower positioning more efficiently and accurately“The knowledge of grid station designing has improved after the training as Bentley Sub-Station is veryhelpful and by this tool the time wasted in manual calculation has reduced and can be one by just one simpleclick”“Before the training I used to draw design foundations of structure by manual calculations but after thetraining I can confidentially design the foundations using the software provided”What specific skills did you gain as a result of your exposure to the software beingprovided allowing designing, proper scheduling, budgeting, resource allocation andreporting of NTDC’s ongoing and future projects?Participants were asked to address the specific skills that they have gained during this training w.r.ttheir work domain; and they mentioned:“After the training, now I can design the structural drawings related to 132 kV Grid Station”“I have learned the following skills; designing of structures and foundations, preparation of computer aideddrawings using AUTOCAD, project planning and scheduling, and transmission lines and profile design usingPLS –CAD”“Being a structural design engineer, I found the software very helpful in designing expertise. Also scheduling,budgeting, resource allocation can also be done in a much more better ways than before”

“Now we can schedule project followed by identification of delays more promptly; saving time, cost andimmediate reporting of the cause. This will help verify the strengths and weaknesses of existing towers tooptimize their current designs with the help of the software”“As a transmission line design engineer I really improved myself as a design engineer. Now I am able todesign and finalize the transmission line routes with the help of software in shorter time period which makesmy work more efficient and fruitful”How will you use your enhanced abilities to analyze and augment the performance ofthe virtually designed systems at NTDC after the training?The training strategy was based on enhancing individual’s ability to analyze newly developed systemsat NTDC after the training. Participants were asked to express how they will use their enhancedabilities to perform better, they shared:“Virtually designed systems at NTDC are accordingly to the past experience. No doubt it works well only ifwe work with the new systems provided. Using software technology, at least we can try new designs and canalso check their reliability in software before finalizing and implementing at larger scale”“The knowledge gained during the training will now help to increase the efficiency as we will use new anddifferent software, hence reducing the time required to complete any given task”“Previously, draftsmen use to design the grid station profiles on the given instruction but now we can easilydesign the profile using the provided software effectively”“We have already started building virtual models of our existing towers to check their capabilities andcomparing them with the existing data to optimize the line designs. Next step will be to develop or modifythe structures. PLS-CADD, and SAGSEC is virtual to get optimal design and virtual texting”“Now I can design grid station profiles by using Auto Cad and Bentley Sub Station rather than making harddrawings. This saves times and works efficiently”“I can make schedules and estimate project costing by using MS –Project and can easily monitor on-goingprojects”“By this training, now I am able to design sub-stations. I can create my own database. These enhanceabilities will be utilized by the department and will eventually has its own capacity to design on their own”How will your organization benefit from the training’s objective of “strengthening theNTDC design department to enhance, empower and make it self-sufficient to processand design activities in appropriate mode and to fulfill the energy infrastructure needsin a timely manner” in both short-term and long-term?When asked about how the training will help achieve the training objective i.e. strengthening theNTDC design department to enhance, empower and make it self-sufficient to process and designactivities in appropriate mode and to fulfill the energy infrastructure needs in a timely manner,participants mentioned:“At NTDC most of the training work for 220 kV and 500 kV was/has been done by consultants. Byoutsourcing, NTDC have to pay lot money, which can be saved otherwise. This training made people ofdesign department self-sufficient to design every infrastructure in house. By designing in house will not onlyenhance work capability but also allow NTDC to save cost and make profits”