Up-skilling supported with tailored courses

Bohle is running a series of training seminars to support glass processors in improving the skill-base of their teams.

Covering a wide range of topics (including: safe glass handling; balustrading; Juliet balcony and sliding door installation; environmental control technologies; processing machinery maintenance and optimisation; plus optimisation of industrial glass cutting processes) the courses give attendees key skills to take back to their own companies.

Free to attend, they can also be catered to the specific requirements of those individuals attending or their organisations.

Amanda Carr, training lead at Bohle, said: “We offer a very flexible training programme which can be designed and developed around the individual attending or their organisation’s specific needs and commercial priorities.

“It covers everything from safe manual handling of glass through to how to select the right cutting wheels and fluids to maximise outputs in IGU manufacture an reduce breakages.

“All courses are routed in practice so those attending leave with new skills which they can apply in their place of work to deliver more value, improving productivity and product quality.”

Bohle is a key advocate of industry training, giving its support to the Building Our Skills campaign, also signing up as sponsor of the Best New Glass Processing Operative category in the associated Recognising New Talents Awards.

It has also raised awareness of the skills challenge facing the industry, through a series of roundtable events. The most recent of these revealed that the industry saw recruitment and retention of shop floor staff, combined with a failure to attract younger workers into the industry, as a threat to the long-term sustainability of the glass and glazing sector.

Dave Broxton, managing director of Bohle, said: “The challenge that we’re facing in the recruitment and retention of the right people to carry our sector forward, requires a response from right across the industry.

“We hold a huge amount of knowledge in-house, which we’re committed to sharing with our customers so to help them in developing the skills of their own people, and ultimately drive efficiencies throughout their businesses.”