The Forklift Truck Association has announced a new apprenticeship for forklift truck engineers. After many years of developing this apprenticeship scheme in order to incorporate all the engineering challenges that engineers may face when working on a forklift truck the hard work has come to an end.
After collaborations with Retail Motor Industry Training (ReMIT) and North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, the course will be named “Vehicle Maintenance and Repairs (lift trucks)” which has then been accredited by the Institute of Motor Industries.
This will be an extremely effective apprentice programme and will act as a suitable solution to the demands and needs of the forklift truck industry.
Forklift trucks, although used and adapted to cope in a range of situations they come with engineers in tow. There is a need for regular maintenance and servicing to be carried out on the forklift truck in order to ensure that it is safe to be used and thus minimise the chance of injury or worse still fatality.
Another positive item to arise out of this is that The British Industrial Truck Association has announced an initiative which will aim to draw in a whole new range of people and companies into the market through providing a range of better opportunities and apprenticeship schemes similar to this.
They will be funding a position, Industry Apprentice Manager and this person’s role will be to work alongside colleges and other trade associations to become involved with these apprenticeship schemes. It has been noticed that in order to keep this industry alive there is a need to attract a number of young people, this will only occur if the opportunities are improved and made more available.
Hopefully now this will provide a point of contact between the two groups in order to try and increase the popularity of these apprenticeships. With excellent resources already available in the form of training this can only enhance opportunities. With a number of retiring employees the hope now is that the ageing profile currently can be reversed so that there are people to carry on this extremely important industry.
Ability Handling offers a full range of training in order to ensure maximum efficiency and safety for all operators of the forklift trucks, this training is in accordance with the latest Health and Safety legislation. These are AITT/ITSSAR accredited and can be adapted to cover the novice, refresher and all conversion courses.