Carl Perrin (pictured) will give delegates a unique insight into the first three years of the Institute for AME and how it has developed a new degree course that allows students to apply theory directly on shopfloor projects.
The collaboration between Coventry University and Unipart Manufacturing currently has 90 young people completing their BEng and MEng, with the first cohort set to graduate shortly.
Perrin explained: “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.
“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.”
He continued: “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.
“When they leave AME they will have an immediate positive impact on the business they 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.”
The Institute for AME is located on the Unipart Manufacturing site in Coventry and is housed in a 1700m2 purpose-built hub.
Perrin added: “The other part of my talk will be looking at 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.
“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.”
Perrin will be presenting at Subcon at 10.45am.
