Young engineers to benefit from WMG Academy’s partnership with Aston Martin

A successful partnership between Warwick Manufacturing Group Academy for Young Engineers and Aston Martin is celebrating the launch of an enhanced design and production engineering facility at the academy.

The partnership between Aston Martin and the Academy was started following a Skills for Employment seminar, hosted by Warwickshire County Council, in April 2015. The county council is investing £2million over the next three years to develop new and stronger business and school relationships.

The WMG Academy for Young Engineers appealed to Aston Martin as a ‘recruitment pipeline’ of young talented engineers. And after winning a £40,000 grant, the partnership focused on developing enhanced design facilities with extra computers, new industry-based software and facilities to broaden the access of learning real-life business skills.

Karen Botting, Head of Learning and Development at Aston Martin said: “We are addressing the requirement for CAD Body Engineering by training students in Siemen’s NX software used by engineers at Aston Martin. This is a great opportunity to help students develop a range of skills that set them up to apply for our advanced apprenticeship at Aston Martin.

"Our car design software supplier, Majenta PLM, outlined the attractive free offer of Siemen’s software to schools.”

Andrew Kyprianou, Head of Engineering at the Academy added: “The grant and partnership with Aston Martin has accelerated the delivery of the enhanced design facilities at the academy, which will greatly benefit students and their employability skills. At the academy we aim to make the learning experience relevant to business needs. 

"The CAD facilities will aid the experience of Designing-Creating–Doing which is a core ethos of the academy. Working with Aston Martin has opened up other student opportunities. We have an exciting programme of work placements over the coming months that help shape career choices and personal skills such as confidence and business knowledge.”

Glenn Robinson, Skills for Employment Programme Manager at Warwickshire County Council, said: “The new facility illustrates the win-win benefits when you develop strong relationships between local businesses and schools. The partnerships help to identify the needs and opportunities which develops the skills and attributes which employers require.”

The state-of-the-art design studio has 22 computer-aided design platforms equipped with industry-standard software used in the auto and manufacturing industries, provided free-of-charge by Siemens.