John Neill, Unipart Group chairman and CEO, and Coventry University’s John Latham used the one-year anniversary of the UK’s first ‘Faculty on the Factory Floor’ to urge the sector to embrace a more ‘down to earth’ approach.
More than 100 delegates to its manufacturing hub in Coventry heard how £42.9bn of investment is channeled into training and development every year, yet over 145,000 jobs are left unfilled due to a lack of skilled candidates.
The duo believe the AME blueprint is already offering a viable solution, with more than 60 young people currently completing innovative degree courses that will make them industry-ready.
“The original vision was to find a different way of educating engineering and manufacturing graduates so that when they finished their learning they could enter employment and make an immediate positive impact,” explained Latham.
He added: “We were already working with Unipart and both of us shared a passion to meet the growing skills gap. The result was a coming together of minds and investment in shaping the UK’s first ‘Faculty on the Factory Floor’, a place where young engineers could learn on ‘live’ manufacturing projects and from some of the best lecturers and engineers in the country.
“This ensures that the theory is applied into practice pretty much every day of their course and allows them to learn the softer skills of teamwork, project management and how to present ideas clearly.”
Neill said: “Skills was definitely the starting focus, but this quickly accelerated to look at how we could develop a world class R&D centre that focused on exploring new technologies for existing and new clients in automotive, aerospace, rail and renewables.
“All our solutions will meet an immediate or future customer need. We believe AME offers the opportunity for the UK to improve productivity by translating the knowledge and problem solving capabilities of our people into real competitive advantage.”
