Leaders from some of Tyneside's top manufacturing and engineering companies have attended the launch of Newcastle College's new Advanced Manufacturing Suite.
Delegates from firms such as Siemens Energy, Baker Hughes and Shepherd Offshore were shown the newly kitted out facility at the college's Rye Hill Campus, where cutting edge technology including robotics, 3D modelling equipment and CNC machines have been brought in to train students who could go on to careers in advanced manufacturing. About 500 students per year are expected to pass through the facility, which upgraded existing classroom and workshop space at the college, under the direction of an employer advisory board.
Newcastle College principal Jon Ridley said the move is in response to consultation with industry about future skills needs, and part of a wider investment strategy across city centre campus, its Aviation Academy at Newcastle International Airport and its Wallsend-based Energy Academy, where students are trained for subsea and renewable energy industries. The new Advanced Manufacturing Suite will also be used to upskill local workers.
He said: "At Newcastle College our courses are designed in collaboration - we co-create - with employers. So where employers are talking about the kit and equipment that's needed - we go out and purchase that equipment.
"The difference in being a student at Newcastle College and a student at sixth form or a university, is experiential. It's about practicing and honing the skills on the kit."
The array of workshop equipment supplied by Mach Machine tools spans different sub-sectors of advanced manufacturing with the college hoping to turn out workforce-ready candidates who can use the type of machinery and systems found on the workshop floor at local employers. Learners will have the opportunity to program robotic arms of the kind found on production lines and get to grips with precision milling machines used by component manufacturers.
Overall, the investment in the machinery together with building work and IT required alongside it is worth £3m.
Mr Ridley said the suite is intended to blend theory and applied learning - breaking traditional barriers between classrooms and workshop. He added: "It's 100% for the region and that's the thing about Newcastle College, we do have a large number of 16-18 year-olds and there are about 13,000 students here per year.
"Only about 6,500 of those are kids and the rest are adults, and of those adults you've got people looking to retrain, re-skill and up-skill to enhance their careers. So to meet the region's ambitions, facilities like this are going to be the engine of that ambition."
The Advanced Manufacturing Suite is the first of its kind for Newcastle College, but follows the construction of a Green Technology Centre for Kidderminster College - a Newcastle stablemate in the wider NCG group of seven colleges across the country. It also follows the recent launch of the New College Durham's National Battery Training & Skills Academy which is intended to provide skills for battery maker AESC's forthcoming second North East gigafactory, and the industry more broadly.
