Top Schools for Manufacturing Excellence

When orders are scarce, you have to fight hard to win them. A well trained and skilled workforce can lead to higher productivity and higher profits. According to Lantra, the Sector Skills Council for environmental and land-based industries in the UK, firms that do not train are 2.5 times more likely to fail than those who do, and for every £1 invested in training the return can be between £3 and £6.

Leaders in best practice organizations understand a business is only as strong as the weakest link in its value chain and take a whole business approach to developing their people. In the words of Kraft’s CEO Irene Rosenfeld: “If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”

Training comes in many shapes and forms and there are a thousand and one providers of training services.

Where to begin? Well, for starters, there are the MBA type courses which the likes of Cranfield University run, while many regional universities work closely with the manufacturing sector to provide degrees in PhDs in topics of manufacturing and business improvement. “Companies recognize the importance of investing in the shopfloor and improving their training,” says Cranfield School of Management’s Dr. Marek Szwejczewski.

Cranfield has a global reputation for inspirational teaching and research and Szwejczewski is Director of the Best Factory Awards and Reader at Cranfield School of Management. He says that manufacturing at Cranfield is unique in its multidisciplinary approach that brings together expertise in the areas of design, technology and management. “We are helping manufacturers move up the value chain through training. Yes, there has been a general decline in the number of people joining the manufacturing industry, but if you go to any good plant and you talk about training, you’ll learn that a lot of their shopfloor people are multi-skilled. obviously because as the number of people in manufacturing has dropped those left behind have had to learn more skills.

“I think it is good and encouraging that the shopfloor people have more skills and companies recognize the importance of investing in the shopfloor and improving their training.”

Many Cranfield courses are aimed at the shopfloor, general managers, manufacturing directors and senior managers involved in the strategic development of manufacturing systems. However, there has been an increase in the training offered to middle management in businesses facing the operational interpretation of manufacturing strategy. “That is an emerging trend,” Szwejczewski says. “We are also doing more customized workshops.”

Leading industry bodies like the NAM, the EEF or MAS are able to help with respect to training too. The EEF, for example, runs a number of specialist training courses, designed specifically around the unique demands of manufacturers, from basic employment law courses to complex environmental compliance training. It also offers NEBOSH courses and IOSH courses, as well as accredited training courses by the likes of IEMA, CIPD and ILM. “Quality training courses from EEF come with focus and flexibility built into each and every course,” says Mark Swift, EEF Head of Media Relations.

The NAM’s Manufacturing Institute has a similar offering. “A highly educated and skilled technical workforce is the single most critical element of innovation success, and a decisive factor in U.S. manufacturing global competitiveness,” NAM says on its website. “The Institute’s National Center for the American Workforce designs and deploys leading-edge solutions to ensure manufacturers have continued access to talented individuals with the right skills to be successful in the workplace. Our programs and resources provide a ’one stop shop’ for finding, recruiting, educating, employing, and advancing the manufacturing workforce.”

There are also people like the CIPD, which offers certificate programs and qualifications in a wide range of subjects, and, of course, many manufacturers have their own in-house training as well. Most swear by it. JCB, for instance, has set up an academy to train its own workers and Toyota has its own academy offering apprenticeship schemes.

If it is lean training you are after, we highly recommend Lean Enterprise Academy Ltd – its workshops are brilliant.

Regardless of what training you choose or where you choose to do it, there’s an ongoing need for manufacturers to embrace new and progressive talent strategies in order to maintain profitability and stay competitive in the future. The most profitable manufacturers rank employing a top-notch workforce and training high on their priority list. However, the study also found that many companies still rely on traditional approaches and old tactics when managing and developing their employees.

“The way companies attract, retain and develop their employees is fundamental to success,” Richard Kleinert, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, concludes.