The village of Hazelwood was the picturesque setting for a day of informal industry discussions and a tour of Lubrizol’s site. Lara Mallett, the Institution’s Business Development Manager for East Midlands, gathered senior engineering figures from a range of organisations, including: Rolls-Royce, Arriva Buses, Zytek, Bombardier, Assystem, Cullum Detuners, Green Tweed and Lubrizol.
The event took place on 23 May and was also attended by the (then) President of the Institution, Patrick Kniveton, and Past Chairs of the East Midlands Region, Dr R I Campbell and Bob Dewhurst. It is the second such event that Lara has initiated: a convention with similar objectives was held at
Ford’s site in Dunton in April.
Patrick commented,
“Lara Mallett set up a very successful meeting, bringing together small and medium companies, as well as some larger organisations and university representatives from the region.”
“We were able to meet and exchange best practice for finding engineers and technicians and developing them into registrants. Everyone agreed that this is something we should do again, as we were all learning and had good ideas. All the participants said how they valued this new network, and I believe this could be a very effective model for other regions and other companies, for the future.”
Lara was very grateful to Lubrizol, and felt that the opportunity to see the sophisticated facilities, development, testing and marketing of engineering-related lubricants helped many of those attending understand more about this fundamental industry and its intrinsic links to mechanical engineering. The East Midlands regional committee was very supportive of the event; and Patrick Kniveton considered it an example of excellent networking and development between the Institution and its partners in engineering.
Discussions were informal and wide-ranging, but there was one topic which united all companies: addressing the skills gap. The day’s meeting was an ideal forum to share ideas and, it is hoped, to lay the ground work to pool strategies on this issue in the future, both in development of entry-level schemes to engineering, and in further development, retention and quality of employees. Lara expressed the Institution’s strategy on this issue, and encouraged companies to discuss their concerns and ideas with contacts at the Institution.
John Manchester, Operations Director at Zytek Engineering Ltd commented:
“The meeting was an extremely informative platform to discuss many topics of engineering. For me it clearly defined the main area of concern as being a shortage of young engineers. Hopefully by holding these forums, with engineers that are clearly passionate about their work, it will give a greater awareness of the issues we face and so help to lay foundations to create more opportunities for the future of our profession.”
Patrick encouraged all engineers to uphold the practice of displaying their post-nominals, the hard-earned symbols of their professional registration, whether it be EngTech, IEng or CEng, and to proudly display their membership of the Institution: AMIMechE, MIMechE or FIMechE. Lara commented:
“This was an opportunity for me to meet and communicate with a great number of local engineering organisations, who are interested and engaged with the Institution’s message. The impact of being on site at Lubrizol was fantastic, as we were in the heart of a high-tech, developing industry, which I think we all found impressive and inspiring. I will take the further opportunity to pursue professional development and registration schemes with many of these companies, and look forward to being in touch with a number of organisations who could not be there, but who are keen to develop their engineers alongside the Institution.”
Immediate Past-Chair of the East Midlands Region, Dr R I Campbell, of the Loughborough Design School at Loughborough University said:
“The event provided an excellent opportunity to discuss future possibilities for tailoring engineering higher education delivery more closely to the needs of industry. In particular the potential role for industrial sponsorship and placements in encouraging students to study engineering were highlighted.”
Adam Kidson, a Research Engineer at Lubrizol, who helped organise the day, said:
“It was a pleasure and a privilege for Lubrizol to be able host this event. We were very happy to play a part in promoting discussion between local engineers whilst also having the opportunity to demonstrate Hazelwood’s extensive engineering activities in research and testing."
Patrick Kniveton, in summing up this endeavour by fellow engineering organisations, said:
“I was particularly pleased, as it demonstrated that my objective – of investing the Institution’s time and effort into SMEs for the future of UK engineering – is welcomed by those companies. This is in the tradition that George Stephenson’s founding principles stated: ‘To enable engineers and mechanics to meet and exchange ideas, and to provide an impulse to inventions likely to be useful to the world.’”
If your region, or your company, is interested in convening a similar forum, please contact your local
Business Development Manager