Opportunities in Engineering
29-10-2009
A fundamental component of every production operation whether it be in offshore Oil and Gas, Petrochemical or Steel Manufacturing is a strong and vibrant engineering workforce.
Excellent design and project management along with routine operations and maintenance are at the heart of any engineering function. Fortunately the Tees Valley Engineering Partnership (TVEP) is working to help many small and medium sized engineering supply chain businesses to support these critical activities.
It is especially critical in a period of recession that these organisations ensure their staff skills are at the level required to support this activity.
TVEP, the partnership representing local engineering organisations, has now identified that many local companies and especially SME’s, are being restricted from up-skilling their workforce due to barriers which can make it difficult for them to tap into training opportunities.
It is therefore carrying out a detailed study to fully understand these barriers and to look at practical ways of addressing them.
Encouragingly, initial results show that a good number of businesses see the recession as an opportunity to address their higher level skill needs. There is a need to understand the range of higher education programmes and training courses that are available to them and most importantly there is a real need to clarify what government funding might be available to support them.
As part of the study TVEP is working on a number of case-studies to showcase SME firms that have already embraced the need for higher level skills in their business to grow and retain excellent engineering talent in the region.
The study is due to be completed in November and the findings will be presented to One North East who have funded the work. The report will include an action plan identifying pragmatic solutions to training barriers. There is confidence that, by removing barriers and encouraging upskilling to take place, improved business performance will result, leading to a more prosperous SME Engineering sector in the region.
