One of Yorkshire’s fastest growing manufacturers is taking matters into its own hands to help bridge the skills gap by helping to inspire 1500 young people to consider a career in the industry.
Lambert, a leading provider of high-value automation systems, equipment engineering and precision components, reached the milestone figure recently after throwing open the doors of its Tadcaster factory to showcase life as a modern-day engineer.
More than 200 primary and secondary school pupils and college and university students descended on the firm’s Tadcaster site and were given a taste of bionics, augmented reality, robotics and the virtual cave thanks to AMRC’s specialist MANTRA exhibition.
The ‘Future of Engineering’ event, which was backed by partners Balluff, Bosch, Cognex, EEF, Festo, Medasil, MPM Composites, Rockwell Automation and Siemens, was held as part of the inaugural Leeds Manufacturing Festival.
Visitors were also able to experience augmented reality, robotic football and test their skills on a digital foosball table, one of the Lambert apprentice projects.
“We have just recorded our best ever year, up 20% on the same period in 2017,” explained Warren Limbert, Managing Director of Lambert.
“Consumer confidence in capital investment across food and beverage, confectionery, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and medical is buoyant, and that is good news for our business with a 5-year plan in place to achieve double-digit growth year-on-year.”
He continued: “However, to deliver the high-quality production equipment we are renown for, we need to continue to attract the best talent and develop our own engineers and application specialists.
“The ‘Future of Engineering’ event is a fantastic way of achieving this by showcasing the Lambert brand in line with the wide array of amazing technologies that will drive manufacturing forward in the future.
Along with work experience placements, factory tours, open days and apprenticeship/graduate employment, this latest event has taken the number of young people it has engaged with to over 1500 during the last five years.
Lambert’s Madeleine Lee played a key role in shaping the ‘Future of Engineering’ Event.
“We recognise the importance of inspiring young people to consider a future in manufacturing and the best way to do this is to give them a first-hand insight into the sector today and change the misconception that it is a dirty industry. There’s a whole host of career opportunities linked to state-of-the-art technologies, such as virtual reality and 3D printing.
