Manufacturing expert to outline skills development at trade show
Measures taken by a Coventry training provider to combat the manufacturing skills shortage will be outlined at a leading industry event today.
The Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME), dubbed the UK’s first ‘Faculty on the Factory Floor’, is three years old.
Director Carl Perrin will be explaining the organisation’s success over that time in creating industry-ready graduates when he speaks at the Subcon trade show, taking place at the NEC.
In particular, Mr Perrin will outline how the institute has developed a degree course that allows students to apply theory direct on shopfloor projects.
The institute, a collaboration between Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing, currently has 90 young people completing their BEng and MEng. The first intake is set to graduate shortly.
When they do they will be one year ahead of their peers after receiving hundreds of hours of practical experience, some of which has been spent overseas on industrial placements.
“The skills gap is widely acknowledged as one of the biggest problems facing industry and a lot is now being done around Apprenticeships and getting more young people involved in manufacturing,” said Mr Perrin.
“However, the fact is a lot of manufacturers are still bemoaning the fact that they are not getting graduates that are industry-ready and this is something we’ve tried to fill with AME.
“Our graduates receive academic knowledge, practical experience, insight into workplace culture and management experience. They will have overseen improvement projects on live Unipart production cells and some of these have been implemented to boost performance.”
He said that when they left AME, the graduates would have an immediate impact o the industry.
“They will join without the need for that ‘bedding in process’. It’s a blueprint that we are proving works and more manufacturers need to explore similar learning opportunities if they are going to get the staff they need,” added Mr Perrin.
AME is based in a 1,700 sqm hub at the Unipart Manufacturing site in Coventry. In addition to creating industry-ready graduates, AME also boasts a team of technology specialists and professors who are working together to develop new powertrain and energy transfer solutions for automotive, aerospace and renewables.
This has included over £7m of funded projects and has already led to Unipart securing a new fuel rail project for the Ford Fox engine and the start of production on a lightweight exhaust system for Aston Martin.
Mr Perrin, who previously worked for Rolls-Royce, said his talk would also cover how the UK can commercialise more R&D.
“We’re fantastic at coming up with initial ideas, but a lot of times fail to keep the technology and economic benefit here,” he said.
“AME’s technology hub is one way of bridging that divide. We have leading academics working in tandem with manufacturing experts to come up with new solutions and these are then trialled and prototyped in Coventry. Once we prove they work, the technology can then be transferred into low, medium, high volume production here in the UK.”
