Training for the Future

The North East Branch of ICME held the second of its successful breakfast meetings recently, welcoming speakers Pam Murrell FICME, Operations Director of ICME, and Patrick Hore from SEMTA, Business Partner for the North East. More than 25 members and guests gathered to hear the latest information about training and education for the castings industry and to enjoy the hospitality of the branch over a coffee and croissant.

Pam began by defining the difference between training and education. Noting that foundry specific training or education are both in short supply currently, she then reminded attendees that there is at least one NVQ available at both levels 2 and 3 that contains units that were designed by the industry with the involvement of ICME members. This is the NVQ entitled Materials Processing and Finishing which covers metal melting and casting, moulding and coremaking as well as die casting processes. There is also an NVQ entitled Engineering Woodworking, Pattern and Modelmaking suitable to patternmakers at levels 2 and 3.

She noted however, that whilst these qualifications are listed by training providers, this does not mean that registered centres can actually deliver the qualifications as they may not have assessors who are qualified to assess in the specific technical areas. Also, whilst NVQ are valid qualifications, an NVQ is an assessment of competence and not therefore necessarily a training programme for employees in the industry. There is also an NVQ called Metal Processing and Allied Operations, again this is available at levels 2 and 3 and many of the industries current apprentices will be taking units from this NVQ as the work based part of their apprenticeship.

Pam then went on to describe the new Foundation Degree in Casting Technology that many members have been active in developing. This now has 20 students enrolled and a new cohort is being registered to start in the autumn this year, with the continued financial support of the Tor Lodge and Applecross Trust. She noted that whilst this is progressing successfully, the students will continue to need support from their companies, ICME, CMF and from the wider industry to ensure that the programme is able to deliver its aim to enable the education of the future castings engineers and technicians.

She explained that the issue of training and education, or lack of it, is becoming more and more pressing and this is an area where ICME is placing increasing emphasis, since there now seems to be a greater industry acceptance of the importance of taking action collectively to ensure that the industry can continue to be dynamic, innovative and competitive.

Patrick Hore then outlined SEMTA role as the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies. SEMTAs footprint is enormous, covering as it does some 2 million employees at more than 75 000 companies. The sector as a whole and specifically the metals sector within which the castings industry falls, faces some challenging problems related to skills and demographics. The sector contains a large number of small companies, who are difficult to engage with since they do not have the resources, a higher proportion of its employees are approaching retirement than the national average, and fewer young people being attracted into the sector. In terms of skills and educational levels, then again the picture is not good with 14% of the UK Metal sector workforce has no qualification compared with 10% across all UK sectors. SEMTA’s Sector Skills agreement that is developed with employers needs at the heart of it, and has identified four main themes requiring action –
Productivity and competitiveness
Strategic workforce planning
Leadership, management and entrepreneurship and
Technical workforce development
It has a number of strategic initiatives that are being developed with the aim of putting resources and programmes in place that can help to address some of these critical issues as part of the Sector Skills Agreement.

After a lively and thought provoking discussion, branch members and guests were invited to a tour of the nearby Doncasters Paralloys which manufactures petrochemical furnace tube assemblies utilising centrispun cast tube and static cast fittings in heat resisting and corrosion resisting alloys, stainless steels, duplex/super duplex alloys which are creep and corrosion resistant.