The new Graduate Boot Camps will look to equip manufacturing graduates, technicians, engineers and managers with the practical tools, skills and understanding to make a positive contribution to their business as soon as they return. The programme is aimed at employees who have recently joined the sector, as well as anyone who would benefit from an intensive hands-on experience or a refresher of the manufacturing and assembly process and associated challenges.
The courses have been developed in partnership with industry through a number of pilots. Cameron Ross, engineering director in Group Advanced Manufacturing at manufacturer Meggitt, said: “Our graduates are from a mixed educational and experience base. The MTC Design-Make Boot Camp provides them with terrific experience, with real life simulation of a product life cycle. They learn workshop skills reinforced with teamwork, business operational planning and costing skills and return to their plants with a more rounded design-make ethos.”
The Boot Camps can accommodate each customer’s particular training requirements, location and schedule. Delivered through a combination of face-to-face training, virtual classrooms, self-study, and online learning, the programmes typically last one, two or eight weeks. Businesses also have the option to co-create bespoke solutions to address specific challenges within their graduate workforce.
David Hughes MBE, MD of the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre, said the graduate development programme is a key element of MTC Training’s mission to close the skills gap in the manufacturing and engineering sectors, helping to empower industry to improve productivity.
"We are committed to supporting the development of the UK manufacturing workforce throughout their entire careers,” he said. “As we help engineers and technicians stay ahead of the competition by adapting and adopting existing and emerging technologies, we are also working with organisations to create bespoke graduate programmes that build on university qualifications to develop the next generation’s practical skills and applications through hands-on experience.”
The courses are delivered through a design and manufacturing project over a number of structured modules, giving the delegates practical experience of the end-to-end manufacturing process. Elements of the course include design analysis, practical experience in milling, turning and mechanical assembly, and presentation of the final product, business model, cost, and lessons learnt. Extended programmes can also include experience with emerging technologies such as additive manufacture, electro-pneumatics and industrial robot programming to help businesses future-proof their workforce.
The programme will be delivered from MTC Training’s two centres; the Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre (AMTC) in Coventry, and Oxfordshire Advanced Skills (OAS), where MTC partners with UKAEA and STFC to deliver advanced manufacturing apprenticeships on the UKAEA campus at Culham. The next boot camps are scheduled to take place 26 October 2020 and 15 February 2021 at OAS, and 22 February 2021 at the AMTC.