Engineering the future
Local businesses and educator collaborate to develop a new generation of digitally enabled engineers
College partnership - Jason Pritchard of E-Max Systems .
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ewcastle College has embarked on an ambitious plan to equip the North- East with a new genre of engineer – with the support of Tees-based enterprise resource planning specialists E-Max Systems .
Working in partnership with leading local manufacturers and engineering companies , the college has been reviewing skills requirements for future engineers and has developed an innovative new course to provide its students with the right knowledge to provide real value to its future employers in advanced manufacturing .
The course , Engineering with Applied Digital Technologies , is a unique combination of engineering and digital study , creating a qualification which is two-thirds engineering principles and one-third digital knowhow .
Students can choose either a mechanical or electrical engineering focus and will have opportunities to gain first-hand experience of how engineering and applied digital technology is put into practice .
One of the key reasons for the development of this qualification has been the increasing pressure on manufacturing and engineering businesses to adopt smarter working processes and technologies .
The government ’ s 2017 Make Smarter review set out how UK manufacturing can be transformed through the adoption of digital technology , yet the uptake has been slow across smaller SMEs . The main reasons for this appear to be the lack of understanding of the concepts of Industry 4.0 and digital transformation , or an inability to put these into practice .
Many companies are unsure where to start and don ’ t have the resources to put this into effect .
By increasing understanding and providing an appropriate skill set for their graduates , Newcastle College aims to provide a solution to this issue . During the two-year course , students will have the opportunity to learn and experience robotics , 3D printing , advanced CNC machine control , enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) software , artificial intelligence , big data and augmented reality technologies .
Thanks to a funding boost of £ 480,000 in 2020 , the college has been able to upgrade its technology , giving the students access to a new five-axis CNC milling machine ( the largest of its kind in any education institution ), 3D printing , robotics and pneumatics .
At the core of the programme , underpinning the equipment and manufacturing processes , will be enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) software , supplied by Thornabybased ERP provider E-Max Systems .
Andrew Esson , director of
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