Certified under UNI ISO 21001:2019
Sheet metal workers and installers play a crucial role in a building’s construction: they work the cladding material, bending it and shaping it following the architect’s design, while at the same time complying with various rules regarding efficiency and safety. They are, undoubtedly, the key to a project’s success and durability.
Zintek has always recognised the value of these professionals, and current trends suggest that this forward-thinking view is paying off. Given the growing focus on the building envelope, it is easy to imagine a bright future for sheet metal workers. The profession is a true craft, requiring both great manual skill – sometimes bordering on artistry – and high-quality technical training and professional development.
The latter two are difficult to find in Italy, or at least they were until the founding of the Zintek Tinsmithery School nineteen years ago. The school in Venice Porto Marghera, which for a long time was the only facility in Italy to offer courses dedicated specifically to processing and installing metal cladding, attracted metal workers from all over the country to study both technical and business-related topics. The relationships of trust and collaboration that sprang up among the work benches often turned into genuine partnerships for subsequent Zintek commissions.
Now however, the company has taken a giant leap forward and rewritten the rule book for training for building professionals with the launch of the Zintek Academy, certified under UNI ISO 21001:2019, the international standard for educational organization management systems (EOMS).
ZINTEK ACADEMY
The academy is the first Italian body approved to provide sheet metal workers and installers with a specific pathway to obtain professional certification. Its courses are aligned with the UNI/PdR 68:2019 national procedures, which establish “the general and specific metalworking requisites for the building professions and the knowledge, skill, responsibility and independence required by sheet metal workers operating in the building sector, based on the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) criteria”.
The courses will prepare participants for an exam that will test their newly acquired skills. If they pass, they will receive a professional sheet metalworking Certification issued in accordance with UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17024 (“General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons”).
This crucial initiative for a business in the metal cladding sector is in sharp contrast to the caution being displayed by many competitors in the current economic climate. This confirms Zintek’s innovative and pioneering approach in many fields: everything from product research to management of production systems, as well as its cultural project, which provides the community with experience, technical skills, and extensive documentation.
Opening the academy also strengthens Zintek’s leading role in the world of technical training, offering a wide range of development opportunities for professionals in the sector. Sheet metal workers can now obtain a Certification that formally recognizes their skills, while architects and designers can benefit from specific training courses, meetings and seminars exploring the potential of zintek® cladding and design best practices.
In addition to being a leading training centre, the Zintek Academy is also a genuine cultural hub that brings together different elements – production and training, public and private sector, businesses, and governing bodies – and fosters new forms of collaboration for a sustainable future.
Curriculum
The academy’s courses are tailored to sheet metal workers and installers with suitable training and work experience, who have already completed training at the Zintek Tinsmithery School and want formal recognition of their skills.
The courses prepare participants for an exam that tests their newly acquired skills.
The exam includes both theory and practical components and is organized and run by an external organization accredited by Accredia, the sole national accreditation body recognized by the Italian government for attesting the competence, independence and impartiality of certification, inspection and verification bodies and testing and calibration laboratories, in accordance with UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17024.
The courses run at the Tinsmithery School in Venice Porto Marghera, which includes a lecture theatre, a 300 sqm showroom featuring models and mock-ups, and a lab containing a full range of metalworking machinery and equipment for the various practical exercises.
The first training courses for sheet metal workers at the new academy were held in December 2022 and late January 2023; the participants then passed their certification exam, and so became the first sheet metal workers in Italy to receive the Certification.
