Composites UK has launched the Composites Assured Practitioner (CAP) Scheme, a project aimed at standardizing training guidelines associated with composite manufacturing processes in order to help companies to take control of employee skills sets.
The scheme is currently in its pilot phase and focused on putting guidelines in place for pre-preg, wet lay-up and resin infusion. The organisation is now looking for companies to join Composites UK members Aircelle, Aim Composites and Combined Composites Technologies to invest in this initial stage of testing.
According to Composites UK, investing in the CAP Scheme can benefit companies by:
- Understanding the competency levels within a company highlighting any skills gaps and therefore training needs
- Enabling each company to link project skill requirements with workforce skill levels
- Impacting on ‘right-first-time’ targets and thus reduces scrap rates.
Involvement in the CAP Scheme will also allow companies to demonstrate compliance of their workforce within audited schemes such as NADCAP, ISO standards and SC21, helping with the manufacturing excellence needed in a supply chain. The Scheme is also overseen by the British Composites Society to provide the link to the professional institutes. Long-term, it will link with apprenticeship schemes and graduate programmes to give a unified approach across the full skill set.
‘AIM Composites fully support this initiative because it provides the ability to standardise the skill levels of the nationally available workforce via the proposed Composites UK registration data base thus giving the ability to check the competency of prospective employees,’ said David Howell, quality assurance manager at AIM Composites. ‘Operating alongside our internal training program we know this will help us increase skill levels and consequently improve the quality and delivery of components to our customers.’
UK companies wishing to join the pilot phase in any of the three areas should contact Composites UK on 01442 275365 or info@compositesuk.co.uk for further details.
This story is reprinted from material from Composites UK, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
