UK’s manufacturing sector uses the QLBS Diagnostic Systems to lift business and skills.
SEMTA is the British Government’s Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies and incorporates the National Skills Academy - Manufacturing. It supports UK businesses in achieving global competitiveness through investment in skills. SEMTA has been charged with a lead role in not only transforming the manufacturing sector, but also leading the way for other sectors in the way skills needs are identified and development plans are generated. Essentially the challenge was to enable the industry to assess itself against new ways of business that were necessary to survive and thrive, and to do this via web based self assessment, workshops and one to one expert facilitation. After conducting a worldwide search for technology that would assist in this mission, SEMTA chose QLBS.
Using the QLBS suite of diagnostic tools, Business Owners/Managers, Human Resources personnel and organisational development assessors can rapidly, thoroughly and objectively carry out skills gap analyses, allowing them to identify individual and organisational shorfalls and implement a skills development plan. As part of doing the assessments, the identified skills needs can be seamlessly matched to the best Course and Provider through using the built-in Search Engine.
The QLBS tools are being used as a key feature of the "Skills Connector" portal which was launched at the SEMTA Manchester Conference in March 2010, to introduce the new SEMTA "One Call - Skills Service".
Bill Twigg, Development Director of SEMTA, says,
“The use of web based technology to distribute best practice models and help companies assess themselves against these models and develop skills development plans is key. A big advantage of the QLBS system is the ability to capture these “needs assessments” in a permanent database so that regional, cluster, and industry-wide skills needs can be identified and tracked over time.”
Dr. Emma Mulligan, business development manager of TheNational Skills Academy, says,
“Each assessment will be captured in a database enabling the Skills Academy to aggregate skills needs by region or industry type and channel skills development to the areas that will truly strengthen the industry. We will also track capability improvements over time and report back in a measured approach to funders of the skills development program.”
Ongoing Partnership to Develop New BPM’s
SEMTA purchased and installed the QLBS system as its platform for developing and distributing best practice models and assessing skills needs. SEMTA and QLBS together will work with the five strategic sector groups identified to date: the automotive, marine, aerospace, biosciences, and electro-mechanical industries, to establish BPM’s and deploy them widely. Examples of this partnership in action are the development of the Strategic Workforce Planning Model for the aerospace sector, led by British Aerospace, Rolls Royce and other industry leaders, also the 21st Century Supply Chain Model that is being rolled out through ADS.