aerospace
With a managing
director whose
previous position
was CEO of
Mckechnie
Group's
Aerospace
Division, it is no
surprise that the
National Skills
Academy for
Manufacturing
aims to improve
skills and training
for the UK’s
aerospace
industry as one of
several priorities. Beyond read more about
aerospace at
www.mwponline.com
New Products
■ Machining titanium DST
http://tinyurl.com/33nupl
Case Studies
■ Five axis titanium
machining Dugard
http://tinyurl.com/3bcgn8
■ Rout to success CMT
http://tinyurl.com/2uzjnd
Features
■ Burcas benefits from
supply chain overhaul
Burcas
http://tinyurl.com/2m4g8l
academia
SINCE January the National Skills Academy for
Manufacturing (NSAM) has worked with various
companies and associations to compile the feedback
required to guide the development of training products
and services designed to move UK aerospace forward.
The threat from developing countries to UK
manufacturing is becoming stronger each year. China
produces twice as many engineering graduates as the
UK, and India almost three times as many. Countries
that have traditionally offered a cheap manufacturing
alternative to the UK are now looking to compete on the
skills levels of their workforces too.
To weather the gathering storm of global competition
the government established the NSAM, one of the four
pioneering skills academies launched in early 2007. It is
ensuring the delivery of high quality, 21st century
training products and services to improve skills and
ensure the future prosperity of the UK manufacturing
industry, making it globally competitive.
The NSAM believes that high quality training must
meet three clear criteria:
■ To address the needs of industry, any training
product or service’s development must be led by
employers, ensuring that the content is precisely aligned
to what industry needs. This is training driven by
demand not supply.
■ Training is only as good as the person delivering it.
To ensure that skills development is delivered at the
highest level of quality trainers must be fully validated
to national standards, thereby providing a safeguard
against ineffective delivery of training content.
■ Training must have a clear link to business benefits.
32 MWP november 2007
People are at the heart of a business and need nurturing.
By investing in them through improving their skills,
employers need to realise that they can meet their longterm
business objectives, enhance their competitive
position and tackle new challenges.
The NSAM has been working since January to identify
partners across the manufacturing sector so it can
understand what industry needs to fill the skills gap and
bring real value to businesses. This information will
help it develop the right training products and services,
and establish a system of good practice that will be a
beacon of security for employers.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to produce a one-sizefits-all
template for success across every sector. For
example, the UK aerospace industry is highly specialised
in terms of skills. Traditionally, employees require a
greater number of high-level skills. Over 30% of
aerospace employees are educated to degree standard or
equivalent (forecast to rise to 40% by 2010) and more
than 11% involved in research and development. For such
a specialised manufacturing sector, the NSAM must
ensure the provision of a truly tailored service. To
achieve this it is establishing a series of partnerships
with organisations already well established in the
aerospace sector.
One of those is the Society of British Aerospace
Companies (SBAC), the UK’s national trade association
representing companies supplying civil air transport,
aerospace defence, homeland security and space. SBAC
has collected valuable information on the sector’s
training and skills requirements through its 21st
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.