Engineering apprentices design remote-controlled forklift

A team of young engineers from CMB Engineering has excelled in this year’s Manufacturing Team Challenge category at the national WorldSkills UK competition, winning first prize for the design and production of a remote control forklift.

The win reflects the company’s highly advanced engineering skills, technical expertise and commitment to developing the engineers and beverage canmakers of tomorrow.

The WorldSkills competition rewards talent and seeks to increase knowledge across a number of industries by encouraging apprenticeships, skills development and further education for young people starting out in vocational and manufacturing roles. The young engineers from CMB Engineering will now go on to represent the UK in the global, WorldSkills final, which will be held in São Paulo, Brazil, August 11-16, 2015.

The CMB Engineering team is made up of Chris Renwick, Patrick Devanney and Dominic Trees. All three members have been trained by CMB Engineering’s long-running apprenticeship scheme, which centers around a four-year program of either electrical or mechanical engineering and includes time spent in formal study at Bradford College or Leeds City College, as well as practical experience working alongside the company’s professional engineering teams.

Taking part in the Competition enables the UK to share best practice in vocational teaching, raising standards and expertise in further education, skills and apprenticeships. Participating manufacturing teams were provided with initial design criteria for a motorized forklift truck ahead of the competition and then tasked with manufacturing and assembling, including producing full 2D and 3D CAD drawings of all manufactured parts, electrical circuit drawings and the programmable logic controller (PLC) program. The teams also had to deal with the added pressure of a range of supplementary challenges while building their machines, which included surprise projects passed to the team by the judges during the competition.

“We are thrilled that our boys will be on that plane to Brazil, representing the very best of British manufacturing” said Andrew Truelove, General Manager at CMB Engineering. “Their selection is an outstanding achievement and a fine testament to the value and quality of the apprenticeship schemes we are proud to run at CMB Engineering. We drive invention within the canmaking industry and we firmly believe in investing the time needed to develop and nurture all of our employees. Our young team’s success is a showcase of how we continue to set a benchmark for the industry and push innovation forward.”

Speaking after the announcement, the three apprentices representing Team UK said:

Patrick Devanney: “I am exceedingly proud to work for a company that offers me the ability to showcase my talents on an international level. WorldSkills 2015 is a competitive and tough environment and it is thanks to CMB Engineering’s expertise in training and talent development that we, as a team, were able to think on our feet and deliver manufacturing solutions that more than matched the strict criteria of the competition.”

Chris Renwick: “Working with such talented individuals has advanced my progression in both electrical and mechanical engineering. Success in this year’s competition will be a lasting memory and, what’s more, having the ability to represent the UK on a global stage is a monumental achievement for us all -and one that we will grasp with both hands.”

Dominic Trees: “The training and support I receive from CMB Engineering has been exceptional. Each day I continue to grow, learn and implement the skills required to be a first-class engineer.”