JB Springs is delighted to announce that we have today begun rolling out our ‘Springtelligence’ programme; a newly developed series of learning experiences to engage and inspire the next generation of spring engineers as well as providing them with knowledge and skills in the areas of spring engineering and manufacturing.

2018 The Year of Engineering campaign is a joint initiative between the government and industry to give thousands of young people inspiring experiences of engineering, as part of a year-long campaign to tackle the engineering skills gap and widen the pool of young people who join the profession.

Though engineering is one of the most productive sectors in the UK economy, there is shortage of qualified engineering graduates, and a lack of diversity in the profession – the engineering workforce is 94% white and 91% male.

Commenting on these problems, that he is all too familiar with, JB Springs Managing Director Alex Driver said:

“As a company we struggle to find people with knowledge in spring engineering and even less with knowledge of spring manufacturing, which is one of the biggest challenges we face in growing our business.

“The specialist field of spring engineering touches all areas of mechanical engineering. Many of the advancements in the fields of automotive, aerospace, agriculture, medical, and white goods manufacturing simply would not have been possible without springs, and yet our schools, colleges and universities allocate very little time to the subject of spring engineering.

“Out of our desire to overcome this challenge we developed Springtelligence.”

JB Springs’ engineers have already visited several junior and infant schools in Skipton to test their Springtelligence programme. They have also been helping students from Giggleswick Secondary School by producing components for their A Level projects, and have arranged visits to their purpose-built factory for a number of other schools including Skipton Girls’ High School and Ermysted’s Grammar School.

We are also using the educational tools and resources created, which include videos, lesson plans and experiments, to train our own staff in an interactive setting.

Speaking at the launch of The Year of Engineering in January, Professor Dame Ann Dowling, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, supported the introduction of the government programme: “The Year of Engineering provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase the benefits of engineering to the UK economy and the myriad different career options that are available for young people, building on and elevating the work delivered by the profession to date to engage young people with STEM, and engineering in particular.”

Alex Driver concluded: “The future of manufacturing is dependent on the development of the next generation of engineers. Once we have captured and engaged the next generation we must then create environments of continuous learning that excite the imagination and drive improvements in productivity.

“We strongly believe the key to unlocking the next 128 years of manufacturing excellence is to leverage the expertise we have gained over the past 128 years.”

Some of the educational resources and material will be made publicly available online throughout the year for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of spring engineering.

For more information on Springtelligence visit www.jbsprings.co.uk/Springtelligence