THE SBAC MASTER ENGINEERS PROGRAMME
The Competitiveness White Paper, “Our Competitive Future” (published
in December 1998) stressed the critical role of sectoral partnerships,
including supply chain initiatives and networking, in sharing knowledge
and upgrading skills among complementary businesses. A successful model
for achieving these aims in practice is the Society of Motor Manufacturers
and Traders (SMMT) Industry Forum (IF). The Government wanted other
sectors of industry, especially but not exclusively manufacturing industry,
to learn from IF and, where possible, to adapt the elements of the IF
model to address their own sector’s needs.
In “Our Competitive Future”, the Government undertook to fund up to
ten projects over three years to adapt the IF model, and the DTI announced
that it would support the aerospace industry with a grant of £2.45M
to be paid over 2.5 years.
The SBAC aims to deliver the following key objectives:
- deliver 310 practical ‘Master Engineers’ activities in Lean Manufacturing
techniques at the shop floor into a minimum of 50 organisations
- establish a ‘knowledge pool’ of twelve lean practitioners
- provide an Internet-based Best Practice Centre to capture the learning
both within this programme and activities associated to it.
SBAC are committed to providing a self-sustaining programme to continue
after DTI funding ceases.
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