Unipart Manufacturing boss issues ‘skills’ rallying call for industry

Unipart Manufacturing Group’s managing director Carol Burke is urging firms to follow its lead and find innovative new ways of bridging the skills gap, including getting more graduate engineers coming through the ranks and looking at how they embrace apprenticeship degrees.

The MD believes dwindling Government funding and lack of a cohesive approach means the impetus must be on business to step forward and she feels that her own company is already benefitting from a proactive approach – typified by its recent success at the EEF Future Manufacturing Awards.

Ms Burke said: “We have always felt that growing our own is the only way to guarantee we get the right number of quality staff and we decided to take this forward with our involvement in the launch of the Institute for Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (AME) in September 2014.

"This saw us come together with Coventry University to create the UK’s first ‘Faculty on the Factory Floor’, a place where young people could study towards a degree whilst applying theory on live Unipart Manufacturing projects. The activity-lead approach to learning means our students will leave industry-ready and probably one year ahead of their peers taking conventional courses. Many of those will have completed industrial placements in the UK and overseas and our first cohort will be graduating this year."

This approach to skills was recognised recently when Unipart Manufacturing was awarded the education partnership title for the West Midlands by the EEF Future Manufacturing Awards.

Judges praised the way the company had found a productive way of working with academia to develop new courses and the fact it has invested nearly £20 million into making AME a reality.

They highlighted a strong commitment towards the general promotion of engineering as a career, with the business heavily involved in Imagineering, the Big Bang Fair and TeenTech, a national competition for schools designed to inspire tomorrow’s innovators.

It has also trained up a number of its staff to be STEM ambassadors, who take part in visiting local schools, career fairs and putting on experience days, something AME students are now taking an active role in.

Unipart www.unipartmanufacturing.com