Teenagers change their manufacturing perceptions

Over the past 12 months nearly 500 young people and 100 teachers have taken part in the Manufacturing Institute's Make It Enterprising challenge.

This has offered first-hand careers experience of manufacturing and eroded negative perceptions of the sector - with 60 per cent of participants at the event's recent grand final saying they would consider a career in manufacturing and 11 per cent confirming that it would be their first career choice.

The cream of young talent gathered in Lancashire this month for the grand final of the competition: 14 school teams of 14- and 15-year-olds from across north-west England strove to be crowned Make It Enterprising champions and to test their powers of innovation, creativity and clever thinking.

The participants had already won sub-regional heats sponsored by Aircelle, C-Tec, BAE Systems, McBride and Jaguar Land Rover.

In an entrepreneurial challenge set by Robert Wiseman Dairies and Tetra Pak, each team established a mini-manufacturing dairy company for the day and selected job roles - from managing director to manufacturing manager - through to finance, sales and marketing managers.

They created a new milk-based product aimed at a customer of their choice - from a baby through to a celebrity - developed a marketing plan and designed their own product packaging.

They then built an eye-catching and environmentally friendly vehicle to transport the product.

They developed, designed and costed their ideas, built a modern-day milk float from polydrons and constructed 3D products.

Finally, they pitched to a panel of business investors from Robert McBride and Tetra Pak and the companies that sponsored the qualifying heats.

The event was part of the Manufacturing Institute's 'Make It in Manufacturing' campaign, which is designed to attract the best young talent to work in industry and to train for highly skilled job opportunities in manufacturing and engineering.