Yorkshire Manufacturing: Skilled workforce leads to manufacturing success
MANUFACTURING businesses know they must innovate to stay ahead of the competition, but the ability to do so requires not just finance for investment, but also access to a skilled workforce, leading business figures have said.
David Grey MBE is group managing director of manufacturing group OSL. He said that the recent strides made with vocational education and apprenticeships finally mean that there is a generation of young people who realise that “the world will not end” if they don’t go to university.
Speaking at a Round Table discussion held at DLA Piper’s offices in Sheffield, Grey said: “Now UTCs and vocational training mean it is no longer about going through the sausage machine of university. That thinking is ruinous. Universities are appropriate for one body of people and vocational training is as useful and should have the same level of kudos for another.”
Tony Pedder, master cutler at The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire said that this region in particular has “moved a long way very quickly on skills”, citing the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre’s Training Centre, which opened its door to apprentices in October 2013.
The group highlighted that manufacturing businesses are increasingly realising the benefits partnering with universities to fill their own skills and knowledge gaps, particularly from a research and development perspective.
Leeds-based barrier system manufacturer Hesco Bastion exports 95% of its products and has seen a “marked increase” in its order book this year as it benefits from the global upturn.
Its chief executive Mike Hughes said it has built up significant relationships with the region’s universities over the last two to three years.
“We are going to them for the skills and expertise that we haven’t got in-house. We supplement what we have in our own business by using them,” he said.
“There is a huge role here for the universities and that’s a particular opportunity for us in this region with our two universities – they can help us on that journey,” added Pedder.
Kate Powell, director and Yorkshire manufacturing lead at Deloitte, said that interaction between businesses and universities is not only driven by the two organisations, but by the university graduates themselves.
“It is very different now. I am seeing more graduates coming into my clients’ businesses and transforming them with new ways of thinking that weren’t there before,” she said.
Richard May, office managing partner for DLA Piper in Sheffield, is on the advisory board of Sheffield Hallam University’s business school. “They built that board to get that feedback and see what they need to do to help SMEs and to ask that question: ‘What do you need from us?” he said.
The Round Table was attended by David Grey, group managing director of OSL Group, Tony Pedder, master cutler and chairman of Sheffield Forgemasters, Vicky Hinchcliffe, group environmental director at Sheffield Forgemasters International, Mike Hughes, chief executive of Hesco Bastion, Kate Powell, director and Yorkshire manufacturing lead at Deloitte and Richard May, office managing partner at DLA Piper Sheffield. The debate was chaired by TheBusinessDesk.com founder, David Parkin.
