EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

10 years of delivering apprenticeships

University of Sheffield AMRC Training Centre is celebrating 10 years of delivering apprenticeships, helping to transform lives, forge strong partnerships and create an engineering workforce fit for the future. Since the first cohort of apprentices started in 2013, the AMRC Training Centre has delivered more than 1700 apprenticeships from advanced level through to degree, worked with 400 different businesses of all sizes and provided continuous professional development to upskill and reskill existing workforces. 

Nikki Jones, director of the AMRC Training Centre, says: “We must continue to invest in apprenticeships nationally and continue to support all employers – large or small – to take on apprentices. They bring new skills and fresh ideas. Innovation and a skilled workforce are different sides of the same coin; they are both essential to economic growth and you cannot have one without the other.”

For further information www.amrctraining.co.uk

Smart tool will energise electrification jobs

The launch of a new electrification self-assessment tool will help fill the 169,000 jobs that the UK electrification sector requires. This online platform will help individuals better understand the skills, courses and roles available in the industry and how they measure up, giving them a clear pathway to achieve a potential career in the sector. The self-assessment tool takes less than 30 minutes to complete and is suitable for people already working in the industry, as well as those who have no prior experience but are looking for an initial insight into UK electrification.

For further information www.ershub.co.uk

ETG expands its offering

CNC machine tool supplier, the Engineering Technology Group (ETG), has formed a new business division for fabrication. Always intent on meeting market challenges, the new ‘Fabrication Division’ will provide turnkey solutions for the fabrication industry with the VLB Group as one of its partners.

As with all solutions and services from ETG, the company has no interest in ‘shifting boxes’, so the new Fabrication Division will be headed up by Andrew Smith Hughes who joins the ETG family with more than a decade of expertise in delivering turnkey solutions to the marketplace. The new Fabrication Division will incorporate a range of technologies that include tube bending, flat-bed laser cutting and cold roll forming to list but a few, with ancillary fabrication product lines also available to support manufacturers.

For further information www.engtechgroup.com 

Strong end to 2023 at UR

Universal Robots, the Danish collaborative robot (cobot) company, has reported Q4 revenue of $103m, up 21% on Q4 2022. The quarter was the company’s largest revenue quarter to date.In 2023, Universal Robots experienced strong demand for the first of its heavypayload cobots, the UR20, particularly for palletising and welding applications. In November, the business launched the second model in its new series of cobots, the UR30, which will make new automation possibilities available to customers. The UR20 and UR30 together represented 30% of Q4 revenue.

For further information www.universal-robots.com

CMZ turns over £110m

Spanish lathe builder CMZ says it exceeded all forecasts by achieving a turnover of £110m in the 2023 financial year. Equating to 549 machines delivered at an average delivery rate of 2.52 lathes per day, this historic milestone means the company has beaten all the goals set by its 2021-2023 strategic plan. This plan set out CMZ’s ambition to reach £100m turnover by the end of 2024. Hence, not only has the company beaten this goal by 10%, it has also achieved it a year ahead of schedule. Some 75% of the 549 machines delivered were exported to other countries.

For further information www.cmz.com