Food & Drink Engineering Maintenance – Creating new talent and enabling industry skill succession

Kirklees College offers both work based and in-college learning from our purpose built Process Manufacturing Centre. The Centre provides a fully operational process manufacturing batch plant supported by a control room and PLC control.  For those apprentices attending college our adjoining classrooms, IT and learning resource facilities provide ‘off the job’ training. For those accessing remotely, they provide sustainable and effective distance learning.

The aim of the programme is to develop Food and Drink Multi-Skilled Maintenance Engineers who will:

• work with mechanical and electrical equipment plus highly automated programmable control systems.
• maximise the benefits of the technology and equipment
• ensure that maintenance activities contribute to optimising food and drink production levels.
• ensure that all maintenance activities are conducted safely, and practices comply with food safety legislation in this highly regulated industry.
• understand the key features of working with consumable products and how this affects food industry maintenance practices.
• work autonomously, taking responsibility for their own tasks and also work effectively in teams.

We will continue to provide all elements of this programme during the Covid 19 crisis. As employers adapt their operations and restrict travel between sites – We are offering more innovative and flexible delivery models. The PMC lends itself to live streamed tutorials for those apprentices based across multi-site organisations; our Management Team and Trainer / Assessors  are working with employers to safely access sites for practical assessment and welfare visits; and our start dates have been modified to accommodate the changing needs our employers’ businesses.

Other Apprenticeship routes include:

• Level 2 Warehouse and Supply Chain
• Level 3 Supply Chain Practitioner
• Level 2 Engineering Operative
• The college is working in close partnership with a number of National businesses.