Budding young manufacturers from Mid Cheshire have proved their business
acumen after winning first prize in a challenge designed to show what it’s like
to work in the high-tech world of modern manufacturing.
Students from Hartford High School battled it out against fifty other
students from schools across Mid Cheshire in the Make It Enterprise Challenge, a
collaboration between The Manufacturing
Institute, Cheshire West and Chester Council and 6 local companies:
Thor UK
Tata Chemicals
Cygnet Texkimp
Tiger Trailers
Roberts Bakery
Winsford Bid Group
The 13 and 14 year-olds had to set up their own mini-manufacturing
businesses and were tasked with designing, building and marketing a Survival
Pod for use in a range of emergency/ disaster situations.
On the day, teams completed a series of tasks, each taking on job roles
from managing director to operations managers through to finance, sales and
marketing managers.
They were also challenged with developing a brand for their company
before pitching their fully costed ideas in a Dragons’ Den-style presentation
to senior managers from our sponsoring companies.
The event is part of a series of themed challenges which The
Manufacturing Institute is supporting through its ‘Make It’ campaign, which
aims to attract the brightest and best new talent into manufacturing by
promoting the sector as an exciting and rewarding career option for young
people.
The winning teams will now go through to
Make It’s Grand Regional Final to be held in summer 2017.
Stephanie Boyle, Events
Executive at The Manufacturing Institute, said:
"The Make It campaign not
only enables young people to experience new challenges and ways of learning, but
also showcases the exciting and creative careers that are on offer within
manufacturing. Developing the next generation of talent is essential and this
event allowed young people to learn first-hand just what it’s like to work for
local businesses like Thor, Tata Chemicals, Cygnet Texkimp, Tiger Trailers and
Roberts Bakery.”