A year of improving skills in manufacturing

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. The Skills Academy will be sponsoring the new Skills Development Award in this year’s Best Factory Awards programme, run jointly by Works Management and Cranfield School of Management/ And the Skills Academy has announced 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 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.”