Writing exclusively for The Manufacturer following a lecturer to members of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) and the National Skills Academy for Manufacturing (The Skills Academy), Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya KB CBE and Director and Founder of Warwick Manufacturing Group outlines his view of the challenges facing manufacturers.
The challenge of climate change has produced a convergence of political priorities, economic needs and the hope of scientific breakthrough that gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to put engineering at the heart of what it is to be British, using engineering and manufacturing to grow the economy and transform our workforce.
April 28, 2009 - In a recent speech the Prime Minister recently compared the scientific challenge of creating a green economy to that of sending a man to the moon.
Just last week, in reporting the government’s latest green initiative, the Independent called it a new “Industrial revolution”
These are useful comparisons. Yet the challenge of reducing the carbon imprint of our entire economy is far bigger than the space programme.
The Committee on Climate Change has set out the level of change we need to make in the next decade. They propose that UK green house emissions be reduced by twenty one per cent compared to 2005.
Last month, the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University published a response saying that this target would not keep global temperature rises below two degrees celsius.
If you say you plan to lose a third of your body weight, and your wife then tells you that’s not going to be enough, you know that's there’s going to be a tough few months ahead.
Meanwhile the CBI has pointed out we need to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions by 120 million tonnes over the next eleven years.
So in the next decade we must double the rate of emissions reductions we achieved with the dash for gas, the decline of British manufacturing, the end of coal mining and all the improvements we saw environmental technology across areas like adipic acid emissions.
So when you try to list the manufacturing sector skill sets that will be needed to reduce carbon emissions, it is easier and simpler just to say “All of them”.
To stand a chance of meeting these targets, engineers must lead the way.
Today, we are a long way from where we need to be.
At the degree level, only around 13% of graduates leave university with the most valuable science, technology, engineering or maths degrees. This needs to rise to at least a quarter if the UK is to match the growth in jobs ministers have talked about.
We must put building engineering skills at the heart of our environmental strategy.
We need new Brunels, new Bazalgettes, new Armstrongs and new Lucases – and since our world is now global, we will need to recruit the skills and inspirations of new Kalams and An Wangs too.
Companies should see this as a great opportunity – rather than tiresome bureaucracy and an extra tax burden. We need to recruit, train and educate a small army of green minded engineers to lead the changes we need in businesses and corporations.
To achieve all this we need a compact between Government, Industry and Academia.
Government must provide better science education in Schools and a stronger vocational skills system at NVQ levels 2 and 3 while making careers in Industry more accessible. We need an immediate programme of funded graduate internships in areas such as low carbon vehicles, aerospace, electricity generation and material technology.
Next, Government must transform its attitude to applied technology. The Technology Strategy Board has a budget of seven hundred million over three years. I believe it needs to be a billion a year if we are to see a real transformation in applied environmental research in this country.
The Japanese Government recently announced an extra Ten Billion pound investment in environment technologies. We need to be thinking in that scale.
Of course, Government cannot bear this burden alone.
Business must join with them.
If British manufacturing companies do not invest in research in exciting new technologies, companies overseas will.
If British manufacturing companies do not offer good reward packages to graduates and talented workers, they will work for companies that do.
British companies should adopt silicon valley style reward packages for top engineers, giving those who create value a stake in the businesses they build.
If British companies do not invest in the skills of their workers, we know companies in China, India, Brazil and South Africa will develop the skills of theirs.
If Government must offer core STEM education through-out peoples life, then business must offer workers the chance to learn the skills they need to succeed.
If we do all this, then British companies in sectors from Aerospace, Nuclear, Automotive and engine technologies, to batteries, renewables and construction will be able to build both the technologies to drive green growth and the skilled workforce to fuel that expansion.
Many observers think this is daunting task.
Can we meet the challenge ahead?
In the words of the new American president: “Yes, We Can”.
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Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya has published extensively in the field of manufacturing and acts as an adviser to many companies in the UK and overseas. In 2003 he was awarded a Knighthood for services to higher education and industry and was elevated to the Lords in 2004.
Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) was founded by Lord Bhattacharyya in 1980 at the University of Warwick and provides a wide variety of undergraduate, postgraduate and post-experience education and training.
Recently the WMG signed a memorandum of understanding with the Skills Academy that will see the two organisations pool their collective knowledge in skills development for the benefit of UK manufacturing.
The Skills Academy is continually developing and implementing leading edge practices that enable work-based learning to achieve its full potential.
The lecture delivered by Lord Bhattacharyya at the IMechE headquarters in Birdcage Walk, London, also reflected the Skills Academy’s aim of working in partnership with organisations that share a commitment to ensuring that the UK manufacturing industry has the necessary skills to meet future challenges and maintain its position as a world leader in innovation.
For further information about the National Skills Academy for Manufacturing, please visit www.nsa-m.co.uk.
- Ends -
Semta is the employer-led skills council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies in the UK. The sectors it represents are: Aerospace, Automotive, Bioscience, Composites, Electrical, Electronics, Maintenance, Marine, Mathematics, Mechanical, Metals and Engineered Metal Products, Renewables and Science. Its role is to raise skills levels and competitiveness in the 76,000 companies and 2 million-strong workforce that make up these sectors. Its National Skills Academy for Manufacturing delivers an independent national standard for manufacturing training content, delivery and process by focusing on business return which is typically 6:1.
www.semta.org.uk
www.nsa-m.co.uk
Media contact:
Martin Farrow
CHANGEWORKS Communications
T. + 44 (0) 1785 247588 / + 44 (0) 7771 970025
E.
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