Win with winners

Mike Richardson visits epm: technology group’s Derby headquarters to learn how the company’s new Advanced Composites Academy in partnership with the city’s college is winning the war against the threat of skills shortages. Back in 1996, managing director, Graham Mulholland started epm: technology with a vision to become a leading high-performance engineering group with sound business acumen and a world-class team. His group would need the right people, and these people would need the right skills – skills that would be developed, honed and built upon over the coming years.

New people would need training and as a result, the epm: academy was born last summer following the company’s first year in its new, 60,000ft2 premises. Armed with his vision for the future of engineering, Mulholland now wants to give young adults the opportunity to develop their skills in a working environment and at the same time apply this to their studies.

“As a high-tech city, Derby needs to be investing in young people and guiding them through engineering applications to improve their chances of employment and development,” he begins. “Our academy works in partnership with Derby College to deliver the Level 3 BTEC National Extended Diploma in Engineering. This is a two-year course where students will spend the first year developing their academic abilities in engineering, whilst the second year on the course allows them to complete work experience placements at epm: technology group to add a detailed, practical aspect to their learning.”

As part of the BTEC course at the college, based at Derby’s Roundhouse campus, students will complete weekly work experience placements at epm’s premises. Design and production specialists from the company will also visit the students at college for specific sessions and support them with a number of work projects. In addition, all the students on the course will be guaranteed an interview for potential apprenticeship places at the company.

“In and around Derby I’ve been very vocal about our strengths, what we should be doing as a city and how we should be positioning ourselves in comparison with other UK cities. I believe that as an industry, we’ve made some poor decisions from time to time. When the Local Enterprise Partnerships first became the local authority power, we needed skills, control and vision.

“I was asked to chair a skills board for Derby and Derbyshire, which does have its challenges. It’s a partnership where we, as a company, are trying to demonstrate that all these providers, colleges and schools could be doing things much better. We’d asked for our own classroom at Derby College - and others too. We’d also approached one university to be told that all their best students only study with ‘proper’ companies. Should we put up with this as an SME? Most would simply walk away, but because of the opportunity epm has within Derby and Derbyshire, we’ve got to grips with it - and despite all the language, posturing and the vested interests of people trying to get students on their university’s seats, we’ve unpicked everything because engineering skills issues are changing the way we will choose which college we want our employees to attend in the future.”

Taking the first step

When was asked whether he wanted to create an ‘academy’, Mulholland didn’t hesitate in saying yes. However, it seemed that initially Derby College wasn’t sure what it had agreed and epm wasn’t entirely sure what it had taken on!

“We interviewed all 67 students on the BTEC course and down-selected it to 40 that were good enough to go forward. We then held our own competition and 25 students won through. At this point, the college thought we were going to take on only a handful of students; instead we took all 25. We bought the students branded uniforms and kit bags and our epm: academy was born. We now have our own classroom with a sign above the door at Derby College, and the academy team has its own workspace and classroom within epm’s new facility.

“We’ve gradually warmed up the academy to our speed of thinking and engage with them at every opportunity. We’ll never too busy to help the students. However, the course isn’t quite right and it isn’t as composites-focused as we thought. We recognise that it’s a three-day course, so on the other two days, the students work at epm and become part of a real manufacturing facility. We’ve broken the students down into teams and established hands-on student projects, such as designing a composite lightweight aircraft landing gear assembly.”

Mulholland reckons that although Derby city pitches itself as a capital of innovation, surprisingly its university doesn’t have any composite materials-related course modules available on its curriculum.

“The latest spaceships, satellites and aero engines contain less metal and increasingly more composites. Why is Derby’s latest crop of mechanical engineers still working on aluminium and steel box sections? At present, 83 mechanical engineers graduate annually with qualifications in steel eye beams box sections and exotic metals. We need to work harder to help the university give SMEs the skills we need. They’re free to leave the city and work elsewhere. Some students may end up working at Rolls-Royce, a Grand Prix team or even a competitor of ours. If they do, they might just become a customer of epm, so there’s method in our madness.”

Growing up together

Much has changed at epm since it opened its new facility. Mulholland believes there’s been a lot of growing up to do and has been taking stock, and realising that the company has finally done what it set out to achieve back in 1996.

“It was only recently that I toured our factory for the first time and thought ‘wow’: we’re now right where we’ve never been before and this is because of our new building, our team, the skills, the vision and the leadership that has enabled it to all come together. We could never have got this far in our old facility. I’m incredibly proud to see it coming together, the business teams growing up and our business development team taking shape because they lead our business now. This team has a five-year strategy document drawn up that covers projected work valued today at £38 million. epm is no longer a ‘one-man band’; we’ve grown up.

“Our new facility must maintain its high-performance motorsport work. The Formula 1 is a customer base that knows exactly what it wants, when it wants it and appreciates beautiful parts and the skill and expertise that go into it. This building’s capacity is worth about £30-35m per year and all our motorsport activities are worth about £5-6m per year, which gives us the balance to fill – and we’re filling it. It looks like we’re going to go from a £6m turnover business to £9-10m, and over the coming 18 months, this could grow to £14m or even £18m.”

The will to win

Returning to the subject of its teams of people, Mulholland says epm is recruiting more production-related staff over the coming year as it continues to win more contract work.

“We’ve broken our work contracts down into packages because if new work is imminent, the customer cannot be our learning curve. As a result, we’re increasing our headcount to handle any additional work. A company cannot win a contract only to suddenly realise it hasn’t got enough staff to cope. We already have the staff in position so that when the work comes in, the team will settle, we’ll then get more staff and get more customers.

“What our industry had got wrong in the past was to use customers as guinea pigs, which is why larger European composite manufacturing companies are now ahead of us. They have the skill, the engineering and support of their customers - and then put it into production. UK industry has been collectively guilty of engaging the customer, saying it wants their work, that it won’t let them down and then frantically trying to find subcontractors to do it all instead. For the UK composites industry to have any credibility, this has to stop. We need long-term plans and the support from key stakeholders, including all our customers.”

www.epmtechnology.com