The BlackCCAT CoVE which is led by Dudley College provides a direct response to local skills shortages, and works with local industry to ensure that provision is tailored to meet specific regional skills needs. The BlackCCAT Centre of Vocational Excellence for Engineering and Manufacturing has been established through collaboration between Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and City of Wolverhampton Colleges. In order to achieve this, the CoVE has, to date, invested over £750,000 in state-of-the-art equipment at the partner colleges, concentrating on advanced engineering technologies including rapid prototyping, industrial automation and computer-aided design. Partnership work lies at the very core of our work and philosophy.
Given the relative dependency of the West Midlands economy upon a manufacturing base which historically has been aligned to the automotive sector, a sector which has seen significant challenges as a result of changes in the global market place. The BlackCCAT CoVE has been instrumental in supporting employers face these challenges and make the necessary step changes.
At a strategic level, the BlackCCAT CoVE helps co-ordinate training and skills activities in the sector, ensuring that the provision offered in the Black Country fits the identified needs of both industry and commerce and meets national skills priorities. This includes encouraging more young people to consider engineering and manufacturing as a career.
At an operational level the BlackCCAT CoVE is currently involved in a number of projects aimed at increasing the local skills base in engineering and manufacturing, offering innovative solutions in response to and in partnership with local industry. These projects have at their core, an agenda to create a skilled labour force, which in turn help support and advance the growth of the knowledge based industries aligned to the engineering and manufacturing sectors. Our aim is to help employers more effectively compete in the global marketplace through added value products delivered through a skills agenda.
In support of these aims, the BlackCCAT CoVE is involved in a number of innovative projects that allows the delivery of best practice techniques to both employers and learners, skills that have been identified as being critical to the sustainability and future growth of manufacturing in the West Midlands. Five pilot initiatives are of particular importance to our intervention strategy, these include the;
- Automotive Re-employment Programme
- Performance and Competitive Analysis Framework
- The Lean Academy
- Product Design & Realisation Centre (Rapid Prototyping)
- Development of an integrated pathway of qualifications
Through these and other measures, the BlackCCAT CoVE aims to encourage a step-change in the provision of education and training to the Engineering and Manufacturing sector of the Black Country economy. By piloting innovative projects and co-ordinating existing provision to achieve the strategic aims needed by industry and government, the CoVE will help maintain and expand the skills base needed to maintain engineering’s productivity in the region and manage the sector’s transition to a knowledge based economy.