A Year of Improving Skills in
Manufacturing
The UK’s manufacturing industry is celebrating an inaugural year
of excellence from the National Skills Academy for Manufacturing,
the body developed by employers in 2007 as a centre of excellence
to tackle the skills priorities of the UK manufacturing sector.
In just 12 months it has validated the skills of over 350
trainers and assessors, and helped companies across the sector
select and employ programmes suited to improving the skills of over
700 employees. By doing so it has helped manufacturing employers
such as Lotus, Land Rover and The Tanfield Group see real business
benefits from better training, and help employees secure valuable
nationally-recognised qualifications which they can include in a
portfolio of skills throughout their career.
Today, the Skills Academy also announces two new partnerships
that will further improve the prosperity for UK manufacturing
companies through improving skills.
- The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which represents
80,000 engineers and sets standards throughout the sector, will now
validate all training programmes from the Skills Academy. This
means the Skills Academy’s courses will now count towards
qualification for Incorporated and Chartered Engineer status. It
will also become an accredited provider of EngTech and Monitored
Professional Development Schemes and roll out the service to client
companies.
- WMG, the international research and education group at the
University of Warwick, has identified a new methodology for skills
development that has already enabled local businesses in the West
Midlands to make £25m through increased business and cost savings.
The Skills Academy is working with WMG to disseminate this approach
to employers and learning providers throughout the UK manufacturing
sector.
The Skills Academy was set up last January in response to the
recommendations of the 2006 Leitch Review. This called for a focus
on demand-led skills (skills and training programmes developed
in-line with the requirements of manufacturing employers) and a
less confusing training market that offered clear pathways to world
class skills that could boost the UK economy. As a result, the
Skills Academy has focused much of its first year on engaging with
manufacturing employers across the UK – more than 250 to date – to
better understand what industry wants from training content and
providers. It has also begun identifying existing examples of world
class skills development and delivery – the pockets of excellence
which need to be recognised and promoted as best practice. By doing
so it is already starting to deliver an independent national
standard for manufacturing training preparation, content, delivery
and follow-up.
Bob Gibbon, Managing Director of the National Skills Academy for
Manufacturing, said: “We have achieved a great deal at the National
Skills Academy for Manufacturing in a year. We have gone direct to
over 250 businesses, throughout England and NI, to develop the
training that industry needs to prosper economically on the world
stage. We have identified, championed and begun integrating
examples of quality manufacturing training. Critically, we have
become the organisation offering employers and employees a clearer
pathway for using better manufacturing skills to boost productivity
and growth for the sector and the economy. Our success is vital for
the future of the industry in the UK and we are already making an
impact. We expect to make a bigger one in 2008 as we start to roll
out new training products that we have developed with the sector to
benefit business.”
Working at both a regional and national level with a wide range
of industry partners the Skills Academy is setting the skills
agenda for manufacturing in the UK. Through a team of regional
managers and advisory groups made up of key manufacturers in each
region it is establishing a safeguard against poor training,
content and delivery. It is a beacon for security for
manufacturing employers that don’t know where to find quality
products or providers. Highlights of the impact it has had in
the past year already include:
- Worked with automotive manufacturer
Group Lotus in Norfolk to identify the right
training for 300 employees. The first 17 have already been awarded
the prestigious NVQ for Business-Improvement Techniques Level
2.
- Helped Tyne and Wear’s Tanfield
Group to improve productivity by over 1000%. It helped
identify manufacturing training for a new work-force, helping over
200 employees improve their skills.
- Launched a new “cluster” initiative in the
South West with Airbus, Honda and
Swindon College to support local SME firms to enhance skills and
boost business performance.
- Helped Land Rover’s West
Midlands plant train up more than 50 employees all of whom have now
achieved an industry recognised certification.
The Skills Academy is already making a real
difference to the businesses with which it is working, ensuring
employers see real economic benefits from their investment in
better workforce skills.
“In September 2006 we were building 70
machines a month,” says Geoff Allison, Plant Manager at Tanfield.
“In October 2007 we built in the region of 700. A lot of that is
down to the growing workforce, but we would not have achieved this
so quickly or so faultlessly without the guidance of the National
Skills Academy for Manufacturing. Its support has accelerated our
huge productivity gains.”
But it is not just the employers who are
seeing the benefit of the Skills Academy’s support. Employees are
now able to boast world-class training and nationally-recognised
qualifications that will stay with them throughout their
careers.
Gary Dutton, an employee at Land Rover who
undertook the training identified by the Skills Academy, said, “The
NVQ taught me how to review parts of our process in a way which
lends itself to identifying and solving problems. It took four
weeks to complete the course but I did all the learning on site.
This means that as you learn the theory of B-IT you are able to
immediately start putting it into practice in your own working
environment.”