As one of the Engineering Technology Group’s (ETG) ‘Technical Partners’, Filtermist was delighted to have attended the official opening of the first ETG Technical Academy at Norton Motorcycles last week.
The Academy, located at Norton’s Castle Donington site, is the first of fifteen facilities designed to help tackle the current skills shortage in the UK. The event included presentations from Norton CEO, Stuart Garner, and ETG’s Managing Director, Martin Doyle, who said the following;
“There is a real need for industry to get to grips with developing the skills of the next generation of engineers and those already working in the sector.
“Put bluntly, the current education platform is broken and not relevant to the world we operate in. Instead of bemoaning our luck and lack of support, we’ve decided to do something about it with the launch of our national network.
“ETG is investing £6m in fifteen Technical Academies and these will be fitted out with world leading CNC machine tools and precision technology. This will be further reinforced by equipment and software from technical partners keen to help bridge the gap, creating what will – in essence – be advanced manufacturing cells capable of training young people, existing workers and supporting SMEs with production issues.”
Norton will use the Academy as a prototyping cell where it can quickly trial the manufacture of new parts for its range of British-built bikes that are highly sought-after by enthusiasts across the world.
Most of the machine tools at the new Academy include Filtermist oil mist filters - Key Account Manager at Filtermist, Matthew Pearson, elaborates, “ETG offers Filtermist oil mist filters on all of its machine tools as standard so customers can be confident that the air inside their workshop is clean and safe to breathe.”
As one of ETG’s Technical Partners, Filtermist was invited to present its products and services to visitors at Thursday’s event. “All employees have the right to clean air. You wouldn’t expect office workers to work in a polluted environment, so why should it be different for factory workers?” said Matthew.
“By fitting oil mist filters to the machine tools used by trainees at the ETG Technical Academies we are reiterating the message that all workers are entitled to be protected from exposure to harmful airborne contaminants. That way, when they leave training to enter the world of work, they have a clear understanding of best practice.”
The second ETG Technical Academy is scheduled to open at the Marches Centre of Manufacturing & Technology (MCMT) in Bridgnorth in September in time for the new academic year. Training at all of the academies will be provided by Walsall based In-Comm Training & Business Services.
Filtermist has worked with ETG, the UK distributor for machine tool manufacturers including Chiron, Nakamura-Tome, Quaser, Hardinge and Bridgeport, for many years and is proud to be an official ‘Technical Partner’.
ETG’s Technical Partners include Mastercam, Bott and Blum-Novotest - visit www.engtechgroup.com/partners/ for more details.
Find out more about the official opening of the Technical Academy at Norton Motorcycles by visiting ETG’s news page, or watch this short film by MTD CNC for more details: http://www.mtdcnc.com/tv/events/etg-open-the-first-of-many-academies-at-norton-motorcycles