Manufacturers in the Black Country and Shropshire are being urged to take advantage of a major ‘up-skilling opportunity’ that will result in improved productivity and a more-efficient workforce.

In-Comm Training (www.in-comm.co.uk), which was recently awarded ‘outstanding’ status by Ofsted, is inviting firms in the two regions to benefit from more than 50 bite-size courses that will be delivered at its ‘state of the art’ academies in Aldridge and Shrewsbury.

These will cover lean manufacturing, maintenance diagnostics, electrical engineering, CNC machining, the three disciplines of welding, and Six Sigma.

There are also funded fork-lift refresher courses — with a bolt-on NVQ — that are proving popular with employers, as the drivers can gain access to the national operator register for three years.

Gareth Jones, In-Comm’s managing director, said: “We are continually talking about generating the pipeline of future engineers, but that’s a dangerous game if we are not taking the same approach with up-skilling our current employees.

That is why we are excited to be offering one of the largest selection of bite-size courses in the UK . . . and better still, our clients can tap into them without having to spend any money. The uptake in the first few weeks has been impressive.”

The short courses are funded by the European Social Fund (through Skills Support for the Workforce) and the Black Country Skills Factory.

The funding is restricted to companies with fewer than 250 employees, but there is no maximum number of workers that can be put through the courses.