As a Manufacturing Technician you will have the opportunity to start a fulfilling career that will enable you to explore the world of manufacturing and wider supply chain and develop into our leaders or managers of the future.
The apprenticeship will provide training in your core role developing your skills, knowledge and behaviours in line with the industry standard for the apprenticeship.
As a Manufacturing Technician, you will cover roles within a variety of areas with the aim to understand and gain experience in each of the core roles within the factory.
The three-year programme has an exciting, blended learning approach of in-the-classroom and on-the-job training right at the heart of an enormous global manufacturing operation. You will cover broad based training and grounding in Mechanical techniques alongside maintenance, lean manufacturing and business improvement techniques at Waterside Training in St Helens with years 2/3 working on plant alongside qualified technicians tackling “real life” operation activities.
The apprenticeship will be targeted at the Technician role, reporting to the Team Leaders, the aim will be for the apprentice to understand each of the core roles involved in the production process and also gain experience of the support roles within the factory.
The role of Technician is responsible for operating key pieces of complex equipment on the line working on highly automated plant and equipment. Technician’s are at the heart of the manufacturing and business processes, without this key role no product would be developed or produced or improved.
You will support the manufacturing process by working within a team to carry out preparation, start up, operation and close down including product changeovers and handovers whilst completing regular quality and process control checks.
All tasks must be completed in a manner to achieve the safe, hygienic, efficient and best-cost manufacture of all designated products to the required quality, specification and quantity.
You must also be proactive towards Health & Safety within the Safe System of Work and engage with our continuous improvement agenda working within our quality parameters to ensure good quality output, carrying out analytical tests during production and making any necessary adjustments to machine settings or products to meet agreed quality standards.
To be a Technician you need to have a good understanding of Engineering techniques to be able to resolve problems with machinery and or production processes and be able to review process to come up with new inventive ideas to reduce costs and improve the overall process. You will cover elements of Engineering techniques but not core roles.
General responsibilities will cover being proactive to Health and Safety working within defined safe systems of work, improving health and safety and demonstrating the correct behaviours and report unsafe acts.
You will engage with the continuous improvement agenda seeking out new opportunities to take an active role in all CI continuous improvement activities working to set standards in a FMCG facility to control and set machinery.>
You will work towards total Quality Assurance by ensuring all hygiene tasks are carried out and maintained in a clean and tidy state, proactively report pest control issues and manage process quality parameters to ensure good quality output.
Most manufacturing sites are a 24-hour operation, to start, you will initially work day shifts typically between 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. moving to a number of shifts consisting of 6-2, 2-10, 10-6 or 12-hour continental shifts. The apprentice will not be on shifts routinely but will experience what it is like to be on shift throughout the course.
You will need to be able to travel to both Waterside Training, St Helens and your employing company site to carry out both on the job and off the job training is essential.
The ideal candidate should have a genuine desire and enthusiasm for practical work in the manufacturing sector. You must have a positive attitude, willingness to learn, excellent time management, confidence, be well organised, self-motivated and committed with the desire to drive to become a first-class technician.
On completion of the apprenticeship, you can go on to study higher education such as HNC, HND or Degree or work towards Chartered Institute of Management.
Waterside will assign you a mentor/assessor to guide you through the apprenticeship and carry out six weekly reviews along with guiding you through your standards through portfolio building, behavioural logs, technical discussions, observations to check competency levels prior to embarking on the End Point Assessment.
