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Export training week at Centurion

The scene is a training facility in North Riding, an industrial and residential suburb to the north of Johannesburg. Some 30 delegates sit scribbling on notepads while absorbing information that Chris Grobler, a former technical school teacher, serves up in generous portions. Chris is a well-respected figure within the access automation industry and the comprehensive training courses offered by his employer, Centurion Systems, throughout the year attract delegates from the furthest corners of the continent, all eager to be instructed in the installation and maintenance of the company’s range of security products.

Chris Grobler.

This is Exports Training Week at Centurion’s Johannesburg head office. This week-long programme, held during the last week of each month, introduces delegates to Centurion’s range – which includes gate motors, traffic barriers, GSM devices and intercom systems – and also provides an overview of the installation and maintenance of its main products.

In addition to the combined exports programme, Centurion offers various product-specific training courses with curricula focusing on the myriad advanced features and functions found on products such as its Sector high-volume traffic barrier, XTrac garage door operator and the D-Series range of swing- and sliding gate motors.

According to training facilitator Grobler, the company “offers certification on successful completion of an exam, which is given after every training session”. He goes on to say that training sessions are offered “to cater for the facilitation-based learner, who enjoys interaction in class more than the reading of manuals. The most important gain is, therefore, the opportunity to interact with a facilitator directly. We also have a practical training room where we allow our clients to work on demonstration gates and products. This caters for the hands-on learner”.

When asked what future courses and developments Centurion Systems has planned from a training perspective, Grobler explains Centurion “is going to be taking a visual-based approach in the future, by producing more training videos. Some of these videos are already available on Centurion’s official YouTube channel. We have started arranging special training events for French- and Portuguese-speaking clients to receive instruction in their own languages, and we are focusing on increasing and improving training skills internally so that our exports sales representatives are able to conduct training at any given site.”

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