New Sawmill Qualifications & Skills Standards Available for Use

Our Role Establishing Skills Insight JSC

Skills Impact held a Skills Service Organisation (SSO) role between 2016 and 2022. In 2023 we established one of ten Job and Skills Councils (JSCs), after a submission to move into the role was backed by over 200 letters of support from a broad range of industry stakeholders. This new JSC, Skills Insight, has a broader scope to deliver outcomes that support a responsive VET system and a skilled and resilient national workforce. The industry coverage of Skills Insight is similar to our past coverage as a Skills Service Organisation.

Thanks to the input of numerous industry representatives who volunteered their time and expertise, the timber industry now has access to qualifications and skills standards that reflect technological advancements and recent changes to process optimisation within sawmills.

The skills standards were developed to support the skills and knowledge requirements of wood machinists, saw technicians, optimisation managers and optimisation technicians.

Technological advancements and market demands have had a significant impact on how wood machinists and saw technicians perform their job. Qualifications, skills sets and units were developed and updated to reflect current practices, equipment and terminology. Units were also developed and revised to support production efficiencies in sawmills, including the use of optimisation software to process information from a range of scanning technologies.

The skills standards were developed as part of two national projects, over an 11 month period, in consultation with industry and with guidance from a Technical Advisory Committee.

They are published on the training.gov.au website, within the FWP Forest and Wood Products Training Package. RTOs can find information to help them deliver the new and revised units in the Companion Volume, linked on vetnet.gov.au.

More information is available on the individual project pages.

Sawmill Timber and Process Optimisation Project

Advances in Woodmachining and Sawdoctoring Project

Our Role Establishing Skills Insight JSC

Visit the Skills Insight website

New Sawmill Qualifications & Skills Standards Available for Use

Skills Impact Ltd is a not-for-profit organisation with a charitable purpose of Advancing Education. Skills Impact acknowledges the previous support of the Commonwealth which assisted in establishing this website.