by Chris Rea
Managing Director of AES Engineering Ltd group
Business success rarely happens by accident and staying on top, or continuing to grow, in a fast-changing world, usually requires a significant investment in people as well as in the latest technology.
In a previous article, I looked at how to define a customer and how to use that knowledge to shift away from unprofitable ‘special orders’ or one-offs to standard products for which the time-consuming design, technical and management effort has already been made.
Productivity enhancements give your staff more quality time to do business. If you are very lucky, you may be able to recruit staff who are already prepared to do the best for your business and for your customers.
However, in sectors such as engineering, it will often be necessary to develop a ‘Grow your own’ culture. This allows you to take control of your most important resource and ensures that new recruits share your goals and philosophies and have the skills and attitudes that drive business success.
At AVT Reliability 47 out of 74 staff have trained to higher qualifications including in vibration analysis, which is very important for machine health. Even more significantly, AESSEAL plc, at our Factory for the Future in Rotherham, was judged in 2022 and 2024 to be one of the UK’s top apprentice employers according to the Department of Education's annual rankings.
The fact that AESSEAL® was the top ranked manufacturing employer in both years is an honour but is also somewhat worrying from the perspective of the manufacturing sector, since we are far from the largest UK organization assessed.
It was not the absolute numbers of apprentices that impressed the Department of Education (we took on 265 apprentices between 2017 and May 2024 for all functions in our UK business). On the other hand, 12% of the workforce at AESSEAL plc (Rotherham’s largest manufacturing employer) started out as apprentices and have been supported to achieve nationally recognized qualifications.
We also have a Management Professional Development Scheme and are training chartered engineers. Up to 20 international managers go through an intensive four-day development course at least once a year at an estimated cost of £110,000.
I also personally lead on our Fast Track Management Development programme, often for people straight out of university, several of whom have become Directors in the business.
Over the past seven years we have spent some £6.5 million on apprentice training and millions more on many other training activities.
However, I don’t regard this as a cost and nor should other employers in the UK’s hard-pressed manufacturing sector: it is an investment in future productivity.
Note: “Train to Win” is the second in a series of four bite-sized articles commissioned by the Betterworld Solutions project to share information on sustainable business practices, with a special emphasis on encouraging global industry to prioritize investments that favour the environment. The first article was “Define a Customer”.
Don’t miss the upcoming articles in the series:
Stay on Top of Technology
Get Emotional
AES Engineering is a global group headquartered in Rotherham in the United Kingdom that makes and sells high performance mechanical seals and provides reliability services to industry worldwide.
Our main global brands are AESSEAL® and AVT Reliability. We serve industrial sectors ranging from food and beverage to mining, oil and gas, pulp and paper, chemicals, and everything in between. Our highly engineered seals help the pumps and rotating equipment at the heart of almost all industries to work more cleanly and productively, with less harm to the environment.
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