Contract electronics manufacturer Kingfield Electronics has decided to actively promote the electronics and engineering industry, and strengthen its links to the local community with a summer school initiative.
Under the initiative, pupils and teachers visited Kingfield’s facility in Derbyshire to be introduced to electronics manufacturing and took part in exercises to enhance their understanding of the sector. “We really hope that this will interest the students enough for them to think of electronics as a future career,” said Sara Davis, business development executive at Kingfield.
The firm held meetings and discussions with the local education and trade associations and Chamber of Commerce before embarking on the summer school.
The firm has also introduced a number of training initiatives to increase its levels of training and staff development.
Over 40 of its staff are undertaking — or have completed — an NVQ level 3 training programme covering electrical and electronic engineering, all relevant skills for their daily activities.
Kingfield employees are also undertaking training to become ‘Certified IPC Specialist in the Acceptability of Electronic Assemblies’.
“The primary objective of the qualifications is to contribute to the development of a skilled workforce as a whole,” said Alan Oldale, quality manager at Kingfield. “This is done by integrating NVQs into the organisation’s models for personnel and business development and recognising the competence of the people who make up the workforce at all levels.”
Kingfield, which specialises in low to medium volume, high reliability, electronics manufacturing services, is currently recruiting for several positions. These include, quality systems manager, test technician, PCB assembly and instrument assemblers.