The University of Wolverhampton’s Elite Centre for Manufacturing Skills (ECMS) has formed a new partnership with In-Comm Training (www.in-comm.co.uk) to help boost UK manufacturing skills.

The ECMS’s (www.theecms.co.uk) new National Power Press and Tooling Centre will be located at In-Comm’s Aldridge Academy; it will focus on delivering tool-making apprenticeships and technical courses for more than 2,000 people.

Over £1.4 million has been spent creating a modern tool-room with a host of new equipment, plus a transfer press line incorporating two 110-tonne C-frame presses, robot transfer and the latest servo-feed technology and decoiling equipment — all supplied by Bruderer UK, in conjunction with Worcester Presses.

A £500,000 high-speed Bruderer BSTA-280 press will complete the line-up.

Gareth Jones, managing director of In-Comm Training, said: “We have listened to what industry wants and designed a centre equipped with world-class machinery, where world-class training will be delivered by some of the finest technical experts in the business.

“No other organisation in the Midlands is currently offering this kind of training facility, and we are expecting demand to be huge, especially with tool-making considered a dying manufacturing art.”

Ian Fitzpatrick, ECMS chief executive, said: “It is well known that the manufacturing industry has an ageing workforce and that bespoke training courses — specifically matching industry requirements — can be quite difficult to source.

"Our aim at the ECMS is to give our learners a clear line of sight and a career pathway from Levels 2, 3 and 4 through to HNC and Diploma and then degree apprenticeships.

“By partnering with organisations such as In-Comm, we can offer a complete or bespoke training package for the manufacturing sector through both practical and theoretical learning.