E N G I N E E R I N G
XYZ lathes and mills support the first utC
AlAte 18th CenturY Grade II listed cotton mill in rocester, Staffordshire, built for Sir richardArkwright, inventor of the water-powered spinning frame, now houses the JCB Academy, the uK’s first university technical College dedicated to engineering. The brainchild of SirAnthony
Bamford, chairman of construction equipment maker JCB and a passionate supporter of British manufacturing, The JCBAcademy began life in 2006 with a government feasibility study into what PrimeMinister David Cameron has since described as a way of ‘offering first-class technical skills to those turned off by purely academic study’. Inside the refurbished and
extended TutburyMill, which opened in September 2010 with its
first intake of 120 non-fee paying Year 10 pupils and 50 sixth formers, the classrooms have an industrial feel with open brickwork and exposed pipe work, although the oak beams throughout the original mill building are said to have been reclaimed and pre-date industrial
Britain.Around £1 million has been invested in modern engineering equipment, including top-end IT hardware, 3D design technology and several CNC/manual lathes and turret mills supplied by XYZMachine Tools Ltd, which together enable students to turn their design ideas into reality. Eventually there will be 540 places for 14 to 19 year-olds studying for diplomas in engineering and business as well as taking GCSEs andAlevels. There are four teachers for every
40 students, one of whom isMark Henshaw, vice principal responsible for the student deployment programme and for all engineering training and education within the academy. Having been involved in various industrial design consultancy projects, including hands-on heritage engineering work, he was confident of compiling a shortlist of machine tools and related equipment that would satisfy the new academy’s stringent requirements. “One of first things I did was to
visit several end-users to get feedback from operators and the people running the business,” he says. “Asalesman will always tell you that he has the best machine for the job but I made sure I went to places that had had machines for three to four years. This enabled
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XYZ equipment at the JCB Academy.
me to see whether they had encountered any inherent faults or had any ongoing problems; what the after-sales service and support was like; and how, overall, suppliers had performed. XYZ came out of this exercise really well, the machines hit all the specification targets and they were available at a very reasonable price.”
Circle No.E16
Technology in Education No.185 September 2011
28
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Circle No.A24
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