EP #20 - Everything You Need To Know About Test & Tag Training (with Matt Cane from EXELNetwork)

Well, welcome. Hey, Matt. We're blessed to have you come over and spend some time with us. So I think we've been working together for. I was working it out earlier. 13 years.

Yeah, yeah. It's been a long time, man.

Yeah.

Obviously we're doing something right. We're still doing what we're doing. I know the industry, so. Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want to maybe tell us a little bit about who you are, what your role is, the business that you work with?

Yeah, look, I've been, well, I've been working for appliance testing supplies, excel networks for 16 years now. It's been an epic journey. There's only a handful of us started now. We've grown dramatically. We do the training, we manufacture the tags, we sell the equipment. So I guess we've got our foot in the door with a lot of knowledge when it comes to the whole test and tag stuff.

So our test and tag supplier, you're the go to people for, not only for our supplies of our equipment, we get our tags from you, our training, a wealth of knowledge, really well respected in the industry. I would say the industry leading company really when it comes to all of those.

I'd like to think so.

Yeah.

But I guess that that's. Yeah, look, I think there's not, there's, there are a handful of companies out there who do relatively similar stuff to us. But look, yeah, we've got, a whole bunch of us have been there for a long time.

Yeah.

And that collective knowledge is pretty epic. So. Yeah, that's good.

Absolutely. Is there anything else about ATS that you'd like to sort of add in there that you guys do? I know that you offer anyone that purchases equipment from you lifetime support.

Yeah, yeah. Look, I think that's one of our sticking points because we know for the fact that, you know, you can do a relatively quick course, there's not much, I guess, knowledge out there in what we do.

Yeah.

And because I guess we've got the trainers on board who've been with us for ages, myself, my knowledge, the other guys in the team offering this support, just like an absolute bonus and it's a no brainer, like, you know, we want sticky customers like yourself where we can look after every part of your industry so that you're. So that you're fully, fully backed up by us.

All right, so for those people that don't understand much about test and tag, maybe we can start there. Joanna, first of all, maybe tell us what is test and tag and just give us a little bit Of a general knowledge about that.

Yeah. Look, test and tag is. I guess it's a process of making, of doing electrical safety test on an appliance to make sure it's safe. Any piece of electrical equipment that's out there has a possibility of being faulty, and that fault could lead to injuries, deaths, fires, the whole lot. So testing and tagging is a way to make sure that the equipment's deemed safe. There's visual inspections, there's the electrical tests. There's obviously doing a report of some sort, logging information so that you can prove you've done it. But ultimately, testing and tagging is part of. Oh, and s. Every business needs to ensure that the environment that their employees are working in is deemed safe. And this is just a part of that.

Sure. So businesses only. So people at home don't need to worry about getting tested at the moment?

No. I guess it's a bad saying, but we know where there's a blame, there's a claim type situation. I shouldn't say that, but if you're at home and you electrocute yourself, you're not going to see yourself.

Yeah, that's.

Doesn't make sense.

Your husband or your wife or something like that.

We just got to make sure, I guess. I guess everyone does get complacent with their electrical equipment out there.

Yeah.

Used to picking up a drill at home, that's, you know, potentially you can see the wires hanging out like she'll be right.

Yeah.

Look, at home, it's your responsibility to make sure you're doing it. But when you're at work, the business owner is responsible to make sure the equipment's safe to use.

Okay.

Yes. You shouldn't use it anyway. Yeah. But the whole test and tag side of it, just to reinforce the fact that, you know, the equipment's been checked, it's all good. You can use it. It's fine.

All right, so I'm a business owner and I know I've got some obligations around keeping everyone safe at my workplace and all the rest of it. So what are the sort of things that I need to. If I've never heard of test and tag before, and I'm just discovering this now, and I need to get test and tag done. What are my obligations? What do I have to do? How often do I have to get it done?

Yeah, look, I guess best option is if you have to do it straight away, get someone in to do it.

Yeah.

Local guys.

Yeah.

Nice plug.

Yeah.

Look, it's. It's depending on the environment you're in so I guess in a factory workshop place of manufacturing place like that, you should be testing and tagging every six months. If it's going to be a office, office environment, you're looking at maybe every one year to five years, depending on that office space. If it's like a server room or something like that where it's not really accessible by many people, technically that can fall under a five year test. Construction sites, three months stop, no questions asked. It's just a three month period to make sure equipment's checked.

Yep.

Yeah.

Okay. And then there's other services that fall under that same umbrella as well, like RCD testing, which I know is under the same Australian New Zealand standards.

Yes.

Do you want to talk about that for those people who don't know?

So yeah, look, RCDs are residual current devices. They're basically devices out there to protect anybody. Protect the circuit if there's an electrical.

Fault, the eclipsal safety switch like you got at home.

Yep, yep. So the, the actual device that's in one of those portable RCDs, those clips of ones, is the same device that's fixed in a building. It's the same concept, same process. So you'll find on a construction site there's much more of these portable RCDs out there.

Yep.

Gotta be tested.

Yeah.

If you've nursing homes, they tend to have a lot of RCD protected power boards. Same thing. And also if you're a test and tagger and you've got a socket in the wall, technically speaking, you can plug your tester in and trip the rcd. The building environment or the building wiring does fall under the 3000 standard. So an electrician can do it as well. But as a test and tagger you can trip the rcd, but you just have to say that it's out of specs and get an electric electrician into to. To do the work for you. Yep.

And so what would be some of the. What can potentially happen? Say if I'm a business owner and I choose and I don't get my.

Repercussions is that you're responsible to make sure everything safe. So you are responsible to get stuff tested to get someone to do it or get someone trained to do it. So if you don't, there's too many things that can go wrong because like.

Insurance claims, all that sort of stuff.

Injury, fire.

Yeah.

Like the whole works.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And who, who can do test and tag is it? Anyone can go out and just do it or look.

Anybody? Well, as long as you're Deemed competent.

Yeah.

Which is the main requirement depending on which state you're in. Some states have high levels of qualifications required. But we recommend that you do do a structured test and tag training course, albeit by an rto, a registered training organization. So you know that the training that you're doing is up to its standards.

Yeah. Because competent person can.

Competent person.

Your version of competent versus my version. Yeah. Could be completely different. So having trained and certified to be able to do that then at least you know they've to the gold standard basically.

Absolutely, yeah.

And is it, how long does it take to sort of get someone? If you want to become a test and tag, how long does that take to get licensed?

It's. Well you've obviously you've got to get your, your insurances, your. If you're in Queensland you've got to get your business certificate and things like that. But the actual test and tag course is, is a one day course.

Yep.

There is a, like an oh and S white card component with this course it's going to be done prior to the training.

Sure.

So realistically if you were to do a standard face to face course, you've got an oh and S online which takes four hours or so, which I guess it's not purely test and tag. It's almost like the safety of a building. So what happens if a fire goes off? Who do you report to? It's not electrical safety but it's safety. Yeah, that, that component was introduced a few years ago as part of an RTO requirement for training. But the face to face course is a solid day. The courses that we run go from 8 o' clock in the morning through to about 4:30, 4 o', clock, 5 o' clock depending on how many people are actually asking the questions and how things are going.

Yeah, sure, sure. Are you able to tell us the process of how training goes?

Yeah. Okay, so we've got the two training courses we offer. We've got the face to face and the online training. We have developed our courses over the time, over the years to become I guess more student centric, so more about the learning experience. So with our online training course you've got an OHS online component I mentioned once before and then you've got your test and tag theory which is multiple choice marked by a trainer. You have to answer things in your own words. Once that's completed and you successfully passed then you do like a virtual session with a trainer and five other, five other people. Once all facets are all done, that's when you Receive your statement of attainment which is your national qualification.

Yeah.

Now with the face to face one. Face to face training, the one I tend to prefer because it seems to be a.

And you've got them in every state. Every state, New Zealand, North Island, South Island. Everywhere.

Everywhere. So people in their own ways either like it online or like a face to face. Me, face to face.

Yeah.

So the face to face course, you still have the OHS online component but we've added like a theory type practical session for people to do before they do the face to face course to give them more time in the classroom to learn.

Yeah.

Because test and tag is very hands on.

Yeah.

You want to have the stuff in front of you to actually test it.

That's how I learned the best. You can tell me something all day long but unless I get in there and actually get my hands on it, that's how I'm going to absorb it and learn it. So that's good that you guys have taken that feedback on and developed, develop that.

Yeah, it's constantly evolving. We're developing a new lms, a new learning management system. But yeah, that's just another conversation. So it's, it's, it's, it's going well, it's. And I think the best part about working for Excel network appliances applies is we've got a vision and we've got to get, get to that vision. We want to make sure that you know, we are, we give the best service, we're the market leaders and then everything, I guess everything we do want to be perfection, professionalism, beautiful.

No such thing as perfection. I just brought the bluey book for my son to try and teach him that one and sitting on my desk.

So we'll try to get as good as we can get.

So I think that's covered some of the questions around. I guess if I'm a potential client for test and tag and a business that needs to get test and tag done. But we've touched on there a little bit about, I guess if you wanted to become a test and tagger. So I can go off and I can get licensed and there's a little bit of pre work but then it's the actual doing their course itself is just the one day course now that's online or that's in person, that's. You got the two different options that you guys provide in that one.

Yeah, we do, we do the online. I guess people learn at different rates. Like I'm old school. I prefer to be sitting in a classroom focus On a trainer.

Yeah.

There's like maximum of 12 people per classroom. So it's very, very personal, which is great. Anything more than that takes away from a training experience. The online platform is broken up into. Obviously you still do the oh and S module, you do a test and tag theory. And we just recently added a, almost like a test and tag practical online session before there's a zoom training session where you've got the trainer and five other students. So there's more components on the online session because we want to make sure that, you know, there's more involved and more practical. But at the moment, in a perfect world, we would love to have the course go over two days. Yeah, but that's, that's when people are offering a one day course, it's hard to pin someone down for a whole two days.

Yeah, I know when I got licensed back, you know, 13 years ago, it was at the local TAFE and with the, the local sparky. And I think I left knowing about as much about test and tag as I did when I got there because he rarely did it. But because he was a Sparky, he knew everything about test and tag and.

Yeah, that's another misconception. Normally when, when someone's a spark, you'd expect they know what testing and tagging, what the requirements are. Most of them don't. They don't want to do it. They don't like.

Which is great for us.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. But they tend to get their apprentices to come through to do the, do the testing and tagging for them.

Yeah.

If it comes across for their requirements or their customers requirements.

Yeah, I know that we've got a bunch of sparkies that happily, you know, handle the work off to us and stuff like that because, yeah, they just don't want to do it. Too busy installing solar or doing whatever they want to do on that side of things, which, which we happily do. It's what we're, you know, we say our bread and butter. So. Yeah, all right. So that, that gives me a bit of an understanding around the licensing side of it and the training side of it. Can we talk a little bit more broadly about the industry as a whole? If I'm, someone who's, you know, considering the test and tag industry and I've never, you know, had much to do with it at all, maybe I've had a test and tag come through and that's about as much as my knowledge. What are some of the. Why, why would someone want to have A look at joining the test and tag industry.

Look, the industry itself is the requirements to get in into test and tag aren't that much.

Yeah.

In the sense that, you know, you pay for the course, you pay for your insurance, you pay for everything. It's relatively quick.

Yeah.

It's just that there's a lot of work out there for it. Testing and tagging. Every business should be getting it done. It's not law to get done, but part of your HS requirements are that you do. So there's plenty of work out there and once you break in, you end up getting those customers and then getting repeat customers and building your relationships just as you would do with any, I guess, any business. But I guess the testing and tagging, I guess the costs or the what, what people charge, that varies quite a bit.

Yep.

But we have found in the parcel for my 16 years is that you can't run a business by going too cheap. You've got to cover your overheads. Yeah, that's it, full stop.

Yeah.

There's this. If you go really cheap, it might be really great, but then there's no longevity. You want me to support yourself because you've got to pay your rent, you've got to pay your car insurance, you've got to pay your petrol.

So I think we were talking earlier and was sort of saying test and tag's one of those sorts of industries. As you say, there is heaps of work out there, but it can be. The clients are very sticky, so which is a great thing. And it's also, it's a great thing if you're in the industry, but it's also, if you're trying to crack into the industry, it can be more difficult because customers don't want to have to think about their test and tag. Oh, I've got the same guy that's been doing it for the last 15 years. It's a very common story. So that's great. As far as having a business model that's very repetitive, very reliable, very much, you know, you know, whatever work that you've done last year, you can pretty much, as long as you're good at your job and you know you're providing good customer service and doing the testing well, you can pretty much guarantee you're going to have those clients again the next year. It's just getting into the market. Yeah.

It's the tough part.

Do you agree with that?

Yeah, absolutely agree. Interestingly enough, we do get my long term customers who've been around testing and tagging for 1015 years have actually said, look, I've got so much work, I need, need some help, you know, you can recommend.

Yeah.

Some of them are the old older guys. Like, I'm going to finish up now. I'm retired, I want to retire. I want to sell my work, sell my business to anyone who's out there looking for it.

Yeah.

So it's very common to hear people are overloaded.

Yeah.

With too much work.

Yeah, yeah. Which is a great.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it is.

And we've got, you know, we've got franchise partners like that that might for, you know, three or four years now. And now they're starting to sort of fire some of their customers where, you know, they were in the earlier days, they were happy that the customers that are a little bit more difficult and, you know, always complaining about price and stuff like that, or, you know, they might offer that work off to some of the newer guys that are getting up and running. But as an industry holder, I think you'd probably agree with the statement that, you know, it is, it is a good industry to be in. I think, you know, I've been with. I've been around 13 years now. I don't know. How long have you been in the industry? 16 years. Yeah.

In the UK.

So, yeah, yeah, It's a rewarding industry.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

So, yeah, no, definitely. Okay. All right, cool. Is there anything, any misconceptions or anything like that that you guys, you deal with new test and tag as they're just getting trained up and all the rest of it you would see similar to us, obviously. Is there any common themes that you see with people coming in that is a misconception. Until they kind of get in.

Until they get in. Well, the first thing is that you've got to be electrician to test and tag. That's one of the biggest ones. That's a pulse of totally false. I guess the time it takes to do testing and tagging is one as well. When you start a new job or a new process, a new anything, you're not as quick as you think you would should be. And I think when people say they've done, oh, I've done, I can do 500 tags a day, you think, hang on a sec. How did you do that? What's going on? They don't tell you that they might be sitting there. Well, 500 is a total exaggeration. Say 300. They might be sitting there testing laptop computer leads, which means they sit there and not moving and they're visual. Check electrical test Done.

Next.

Next. Next. Meanwhile, if you go into, say, a workshop where you've got to crawl under the desk, unplug the computer, do everything like that takes time.

Yeah.

So it's, it's. I always get a bit hesitant when I hear people say, look, they've done 300 tests a day. So how did you do it?

Yeah.

What. What are the reasons? But, yeah, if you're starting afresh, don't expect to be doing that much. Yeah.

And I tell my guys that as well.

You just need to be able to find your mojo, find your rhythm, and then once you've got that, you'll get faster. Common similarities with. When you're testing leads and bringing things together.

Yeah.

Just to try to group your work. That's to make yourself efficient.

Yeah. And I think there's. There's a massive thing in that. And I think that's probably been a big point of difference for myself and for the local guys across the whole. Is. I know when I first entered into the industry, there was still people, you know, people. A lot of people. People still do it now, handwriting tags and very slow. Or they're pushing around this old trolley where they've got a. If they are using a laptop and a label printer, you know, they've got to plug it in everywhere they go and all this sort of stuff. And very slow and cumbersome. And I remember coming into the industry just thinking, this is nuts, like, because, as you say, the job's about efficiency. So I know, you know, at the local guys, from the equipment that we use, you know, to our processes and all that sort of stuff, software that we've now implemented from our own custom test and tag software to make sure that our guys can be as efficient as they possibly can, because they get paid per item. So it's a really important thing. I've seen, you know, whiz bang, $10,000 test and tag machines, which are these massive monstrosity things, which are great, but the problem is you got to cart this thing around everywhere you go, even just like little things. Like. I love the idea of a lithium battery. Lithium batteries are great. The problem with it is, is if the battery dies, you're stuck. Yeah. You know, if you're organized, it's fine.

Yeah.

But, you know, if you've got the double A's, you can quickly whack them out, chuck them back in again and you keep going.

Well, interestingly enough, because. Because we sell all the testers.

Yeah.

They all have their pros and cons. They really do. So Some of the larger testers, they connect to the cloud so that, yes, you're lugging a big heavy thing, but the database is managed by someone else.

Okay.

Lithium batteries is the next stage of battery evolution.

Yep.

Just don't put them on a plane.

Yes.

Lithium batteries are nightmare in the sense for when we're shipping stuff interstate. We can't send them by air. So if someone urgently needs something, they're still dangerous goods. So look pros and cons across the board, of course, and you find your mojo, you find what works best. Some people prefer the system that print labels when they do electrical tests. Some prefer having more pre printed ready to go. It's a mixed bag. Yeah, it's a mixed bag. But ultimately, once you find that efficiency in the way you want to do it and work for you. Yeah, you do it. Just don't, don't, don't. Do you have to take any shortcuts on the, you know, your visual inspection, electrical test.

And that's the thing, because ultimately you're there from a safety perspective.

Absolutely.

And you need to. We were only just talking about integrity just before and you know, if you lose that integrity straight away with your clients and then all of a sudden that's, that's who you're known for. So you need to be making sure that you're slowing down.

Well, bad news travels hell a lot faster than good news.

It does.

That's just standard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So what's some other services that are complementary to test and tag? I know we've talked about the RCDs, so that would be something that a lot of testers. Daggers.

Would more than likely do if they want to choose that avenue. You've got emergency lights. Yep, we did. We used to run emergency lighting. Course no longer do it. Something was probably on the board again to look at again.

Yeah.

Fire safety. Another one.

Yep. Quite common one. We do that. Yeah.

Anything that's to do with essential services.

Yeah.

So if you're in the business, you've got to try to have as many arrows in your quiver.

Yeah.

To support these, your customers. So. Yeah.

Microwave leakage.

Microwave leakage. Another one.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we're talking that obviously we're in the compliance industry. What's the best way that a test and tagger can stay compliant? Because things are constantly changing, whether it's a state based thing or a council based thing or national thing. I know you guys are a great resource for that. Is it. What's the best way to do it? Because we Run off the standard ASMZ.

3760 that changes once every blue moon.

Yep.

So yeah. But what we've actually got is in any of our students who do our course, we actually send out updates about any changes to the standard or any changes in the industry as just as a part of that lifetime support.

Oh, okay.

One thing we did talk about and something that needs to be done more often, stay on top of things is the product recalls.

Yep.

So logging on to the product, Australian product recall. It's the accc, I think.

Yep.

You can actually see what electrical equipment that's been pulled.

Yep.

And it's always worth to keep an eye on.

I think we've done a few blog posts on, on those particular items and yeah. Get some notification on that sort of stuff as well. Which is, which is a good way to do it. All right, so I think we've spoken about a lot of different things. Obviously we've, we've learned a little bit more about appliance testing. Supp about your guys, how you work with us. What type of person I think would be suited is. It's a technical minded sort of person. That's, that's who you'd say.

Yeah. Someone generally navigates.

Yeah.

Someone who likes repetition. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably an understatement. Yeah. Yeah.

I know for me I used to, I learned, I used to learn so much when I was on the tools or on the stickers. I got told by Sparky, because you're not on the tools mate, you're on the stickers. Yeah. That I used to learn so much because I would put my AirPods in and you know, if I'm in an office, I wouldn't do it but if I'm in a factory or whatever where they didn't mind and I, and I'm constantly out in factories and I'd have audible on and I went through that many business books. It wasn't funny. It was as they say, university on wheels.

We do the same. I do the same as well.

Yeah.

Podcast and my drive to place to place. It's, it's even my, my, I guess my drive to work is like half an hour, 45 minutes. So it's a way for me to shut off.

Yeah.

Listen to whatever I'm listening to.

Yeah.

Self help books, Stephen King books, whatever it is.

Yeah.

That, that's such a great way, great way to get through things.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well I think, yeah, we've gotten a lot out of the time over here. I'm so glad that we managed to rope you in. I know we said last minute that we're gonna get you to sit down. I've got my notes. You had, so. You've done very well. Nah, thanks so much for one coming over and spending some time with the team and helping to upskill them and then spending some time with myself on here.

Pleasure.

Much appreciated.

Yeah, thanks, man.