Workplace Learning Programme For Industrial Engineers Gathers Momentum
2 August 2009
A workplace learning programme set up by The IQ Business Group in association with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) is making a meaningful contribution towards building capacity in the non-manufacturing/services industrial engineering sector.
That’s according to Emily van der Veen, Talent Manager at IQ, who says there is an enormous shortage of industrial engineers in South Africa – only 225 were registered in 2005.
Not surprisingly, industrial engineering is listed as a scarce and critical skill nationally, and the Department of Home Affairs has released 5 000 work permits for foreigners to meet the demand in the discipline – a quota matched only by the demand for construction civil and structural engineers.
“The shortage of industrial engineers equipped to work in the services sector is even more acute because until very recently, industrial engineering training in this country was focused almost exclusively on preparing individuals for the manufacturing sector. Yet internationally, the majority of industrial engineers are employed in the non-manufacturing sector,” Van der Veen explains.
The Department of Industrial Engineering Technology at UJ therefore reviewed its curricula in 2005 in order to align its student output with industry demand.
“The problem, however, is to enable students to obtain the experiential training they require in order to qualify as industrial engineers. Overall, some 2 000 students register for National Diplomas in Engineering annually but, as a result of poor throughput and their inability to get experiential training, only 500 to 600 or so get diplomas. That’s nowhere near the 1 000 engineers we need to graduate every year,” she adds.
IQ introduced its workplace learning programme in 2005 to offer opportunities for experiential training placement and thus contribute to the supply of highly sought after industrial engineering technicians with experience in the service industry.
Since then, industrial engineering students have been gaining practical experience in process analysis and engineering in line with the university’s academic requirements at IQ.
While this has contributed towards the development of a supply pipeline of process engineers to meet industry demand, IQ acknowledges that it has also benefited from the process. “So far, we’ve offered 15 students permanent employment and, to date, 13 are still in our employ,” Van der Veen says.
While the programme was developed to provide meaningful experiential learning experiences so that the students are equipped with process skills as a starting point to becoming process engineering specialists, IQ goes further.
“We are not just training engineering automatons but individuals who also have to function in the broader business world. So the provision of technical training to equip the student with the engineering skills and techniques to manage projects in the process engineering and project management sectors, is only one phase of the programme.
“In another phase, students go through an extensive induction training programme in which we focus on providing information and background to the industries in which we operate. And then there is a third phase, which consists of meta or soft-skills training where the student is coached in basic business etiquette skills and professionalism.”
UJ’s Department of Industrial Engineering Technology also benefits from the programme as it enables the placement of industrial engineering students for experiential training in the process engineering sector; the depth of the academic requirements and training received at IQ promotes the standard of engineering education and increases the graduation rate to meet industry demand; and the discipline of industrial engineering is developed in the non-manufacturing sector.
“The IQ Workplace Learning Programme is a classic example of innovation in skills development where a company developed the academic training requirements of an engineering discipline into a comprehensive student training programme. It provides a meaningful step towards alleviating the current shortage of competencies and capacity within the process engineering sector,” Van der Veen concludes.
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