Training firms go into workplace as report highlights important links

Given the time constraints on engineers a number of training organisations are taking their seminar programmes to the engineer rather than expect them to take time out to turn up at college.

Seminars held at well-attended industry events such as exhibitions is just one way firms can make training more accessible. Others include running workshops at the employer’s premises and perhaps the most popular of all, online training course which can be accessed via the engineer from their PC at home or in the office.

Professor Barry E Jones, Professor of Manufacturing Metrology at Brunel University, will present a free seminar on the ‘Uncertainty of Measurement’ on Wednesday 28th April at the exhibition in Leeds. He says the seminar would be suitable for all levels of staff involved with quality assurance and control and measurement testing and calibration.

At the same event GAMBICA (the Trade Association for Instrumentation, Control, Automation & Laboratory Technology) is running a series of workshops intended to enable attendees to evaluate the effect of the upcoming RoHS and WEEE Directives on their business.

At next month’s Nepcon Brighton exhibition the SMART Group is running a series of manufacturing process seminars which will also major on lead-free issues. The programme includes a seminar on solder joint reliability in a lead-free environment given by Bill Plumbridge of The Open University.

Also free to anyone at the exhibition are a series of design seminars covering microcontrollers and power management presented by leading semiconductor manufacturers.

The importance of a close relationship between training and the workplace was highlighted in a recent government report which found that the closer the training organisations worked with the employer the more effective was the training.

The national report on standards of training in engineering, manufacturing and technology from government body the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI), found 86 per cent of companies which trained their own staff offered satisfactory or better training.

According to the report, a key issue is the availability of training systems and up-to-date equipment. It also concluded that closer involvement in a real-world commercial environment would contribute significantly to the success of trainees.

Barry Lewis, inspection manager with the ALI points out: “Too many learning providers are unable to invest in the type of modern, and often expensive, plant and equipment that engineering trainees need to be skilled in using.”

The report also found that 39 per cent of engineering work-based learning in colleges was unsatisfactory, but the colleges which were satisfactory or better had good industrial links.