COVER STORY APRIL 2020
www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
20
Over 1700
apprentices
have been
trained at Make
UK’s Technology
Hub in Aston
At JPB Système, Marc
in a career in the sector. “As a
company owner, I feel obligated
to connect with the younger
generation and demonstrate
to them that today’s
manufacturing environments
are more likely to embrace
Industry 4.0 and – among others
– exciting technologies like
3D printing, robotics and the
industrial internet of things that
typically underpin the concept,”
he says.
A pressing need
An apprentice is an ideal way
of assuring your company is
adequately skilled for the future,
but for many manufacturers,
the skills need is more urgent.
Helping to combat this is
the Ministry of Justice’s
New Futures Network. The
programme sees prisoners
across the country partnered
with local manufacturers, which
give them the skills needed to
perform shopfl oor tasks.
“The New Futures
Network is a specialist part
of the prison service that
brokers partnerships between
businesses and prisons, and
supports employers fi nd the
approach that works best for
them,” says Lance Harris, sector
lead for manufacturing at the
New Futures Network. “Once a
business has signed up via the
website to fi nd out more about
the employment opportunities,
they will receive tailored advice
from an expert at the New
Futures Network throughout
the entire process.”
Manufacturers can get
involved in the scheme through
one of three ways:
Employing serving prisoners:
Setting up training and
production facilities within
prisons with a dedicated space
and workforce.
Release on temporary licence:
Giving risk-assessed prisoners,
in the last two years of their
sentence, the opportunity to
work while on day release.
Employment on release: When
Make UK’s Technology Hub in Aston,
Birmingham, is aiming to change that. The
state-of-the-art facility has trained over 1700
apprentices since it opened in 2013, and over 200
manufacturers from across the country have used
its services to fi nd and train apprentices. Andrea
Bull, head of next generation marketing at Make
UK, explains more.
“At the Hub, we ensure that the tutors have got
the resources and the diff erent elements of their
knowledge to bring the subject to life,” she says.
“Most of our tutors have had careers in industry,
so they can use real life examples instead of just
reading out of a textbook. We also have a Lean
Academy, where students learn about business
improvement techniques. Groups of students are
put in charge of a failing business, and they get
two weeks to turn that business around – they
look at production, business planning, fi nances,
budgeting, and so on. They’re learning all the
traditional things around business improvement
and project planning, but in a really fun and
engaging way. They have to create a brand for
their company and come to their tutor to bid for
money to help invest in the business.
“We want to get away from a traditional ‘talk
and chalk’ situation and give students really
hands-on experiences where they go off and
just do it. The students are encouraged to make
mistakes – the tutors are there
to show them how to improve
on what they’ve delivered.”
It’s not just the learning style
that the Hub excels at. Make UK
has invested £14 million in the
latest technology at the centre,
to give the apprentices – and
visiting schoolchildren (the
centre has had nearly 50 schools
visit in the past year) – a feel
of the future of the industry.
“We engage with primary and
secondary schools and invite
them to the site to learn about
what the industry is all about,”
says Bull. “A lot of the jobs that
they will be doing when they
come into the industry haven’t
necessarily been invented yet,
so we’re trying to inspire them
around what the future of the
manufacturing sector is going.
“However, we still educate
them on the fact that there will
still be a need for traditional
skills – we can’t lose sight of that
fact – but blend that with the fact
that manufacturing is becoming
this exciting new environment
that’s got a lot of opportunities
for people to be creative and to
use digital skills.”
£14m
investment in the latest
technology at Make
UK’s Technology Hub
is of a similar opinion –
demonstrating the high-tech
world of manufacturing today
is a sure-fi re way of getting
the next generation interested
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