An independent training provider has won its largest apprenticeship contract in years after signing a major deal with Lander Tubular Products. In-Comm Training, which operates three technical academies across the Black Country and Shropshire, has become the strategic training partner for the Birmingham-based supplier of engineered pipe assemblies.
Forty apprentices in lean manufacturing operations will be recruited over the next six months in a bid to develop a future talent pool that can help the historic manufacturer meet a growing order book. The new relationship will cover all recruitment and selection, advice on tapping into funding, induction processes and delivery of training.
In-Comm's trainers and assessors will be permanently based at Lander Tubular Products' internal academy at its Woodgate Business Park factory west of Birmingham.
Paul Hodgetts, business development manager at In-Comm Training, said: "This is a major milestone for our business and we're delighted that another high-profile industrial specialist has chosen to adopt our employer-led approach to apprenticeships and training in general. The tender process was over a three-month period, involved six providers and numerous visits to each other's locations.
"We were able to listen, understand exactly what the firm needed and then put together a flexible learning package that obviously appealed to the management team here."
The first cohort of 15 will start in September with the remaining 25 to join by the end of this year.
Lander Tubular Products has been trading for more than 140 years and makes precision-engineered metallic and plastic-manipulated tubular products for the automotive, off-highway and industrial sectors. The company, which has three manufacturing sites in the UK and two production facilities in the US, has a long history of delivering apprenticeship programmes.
Group HR manager Anita Davenport-Brooks said: "The course will give every apprentice core manufacturing skills as well as developing softer ones and encouraging the right behaviours to fit our culture. All the training will be completed at our factory which will give us great flexibility when balancing shopfloor demand.
"Vocational learning is so important for us and, next year, the plan is to recruit up to 100 apprentices. Working with In-Comm Training will save over £200,000 on recruitment costs alone in 2022 and that does not take into account the bottom line benefits our learners will deliver to our three businesses across the Midlands.
"Several of our senior team and middle managers all started with an apprenticeship and are now critical to our future success."
