A NEW education package aimed at the region’s process industries could help deliver a ten-fold improvement, on average, in productivity and competitiveness for employers.
The BITPAC (Business Improvement Techniques Productivity and Competitiveness) programme has been developed by the Manufacturing Skills Alliance and is being spearheaded throughout the North West by the National Skills Academy Process Industries.
The academy is bidding to help companies who employ the region’s 61,000-strong workforce in the process industries to address their skills issues.
Depending on the particular requirements of employers the programme can run for anything between six and nine months.
Initially an expert PAC analyst will work with the company to assess their business priority areas and measure the quality, costand delivery in order to highlight the areas where cost savings are achievable.
The next stage involves the analyst assessing skills gaps and recommending BIT (Business Improvement Technique) qualifications for staff, as required.
Other options are also available. They include the possibility of the analyst arranging for a qualified engineer to work with staff to offer guidance on the improvement process, or bringing in an expert training provider to assess staff who will be involved directly with the work.
Roger Langford, the academy’s North West Regional Skills Manager, explains:Š“The core objectives are to help employers find ways to increase productivity, reduce labour costs, cut machine downtime, identify savings and build their own capacity to deliver sustainable year-on-year improvements.”
He added: “The data is gathered, collated and used in a process developed by the Department of Trade and Industry, called Quality Cost Delivery (QCD).
“This examines whether a business is making the most effective use of their resources, be that equipment or people, if their waste can be reduced and if there are any issues with their deliveries.
“The analyst assesses the company in seven key areas of the business.
“In most cases the result is a tailored, short term project designed to have an immediate impact on the bottom line.
“Simultaneously, the staff outside the core team are being trained on BIT so they can all earn a Level 2 or Level 3 qualification, but more importantly so that they can continue to deliver improvements beyond the lifetime of this initial high impact project.”
As part of the programme the progress is benchmarked by arepeat of the initial assessment at the end of the scheme to demonstratethe improvements that have taken place.
Mr Langford added: “Industry employers can make significant gains against a small investment, not only through the improved processes, but through better informed and better qualified staff. These gains are usually realised within the lifetime of the initial program.
“And because cost is such an issue in the current climate, we have worked with partners to develop a new fully integrated deliveryprocess that means employers can access the whole diagnostic process and help.”
The process industries produce hundreds of essentials for our daily lives, from biofuels and plastics, through to rubber, synthetic fibres for clothing, pharmaceuticals and crucial chemical additives which transform, strengthen and make safe many end user products.
The industries, which include chemicals, pharmaceutical and polymers manufacturing, have a combined turnover of £67.1bn and a Gross Value Added in excess of £23bn, which is more than 15% of total UK manufacturing GVA.
The alliance of Sector Skills Councils (SSC) – called the Manufacturing Skills Alliance – comprises: Cogent, the SSC for the Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Oil and Gas, Nuclear, Petroleum and Polymer Industries; Improve, the SSC for the food and drink manufacturing industry; Proskills, the SSC for the building products, coatings, extractives, furniture, glass, paper and printing manufacturing and processing industries; and Semta, the SSC for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies.
