16 February 2016
The UK automotive industry may be recording good sales, but the Automotive Council recently warned that future growth could be hampered due to skills shortages at the other end of the production line. Their latest report “Employers’ Views of the Jobs and skills required for the UK Automotive Industry” identifies the key skills needed by region.
In Wales amongst the critical skills needed are knowledge and application of design, robotics, implementing electronic technology, skills in hydraulics and pneumatics and knowledge of PLC’s (Programmable Logic Controller). One Welsh company who is able to offer all these skills alongside over thirty years of experience is GX. Most recently their in-house skills in these key areas have helped develop innovative and complex designs for the automotive industry.
Commenting on the report, GX’s managing director, Mark Helmich made the following observations.
“There is clearly a need to invest in training, especially with the younger generation, to help resolve some of the key shortages identified by the Automotive Council. Over the past ten years at GX we have made great efforts to maintain skilled design engineers at our base in Usk, to help us develop interactive automotive product design.
We also have multidisciplinary teams where experts in control systems work alongside mechanical engineers, allowing them to bring a unique understanding to the functionality needed on a production line when implementing SCADA and PLC systems. This has helped us design and build test rigs, incorporating complex hydraulics and pneumatics.
As car enthusiasts ourselves, we have applied our specialist knowledge of electronics and optronics when working alongside the R&D departments of automotive suppliers to design working prototypes, which have included a Head up Display and touchscreen dashboard display. We have even applied our expertise to extract hydrogen for use in cars.”