Shearline, the advanced manufacturing company, welcomes a recent government commitment of £150 million aimed at increasing the number of adult apprenticeship places. The additional funding is enabling the company to offer higher-level apprenticeships to older staff and to encourage its engineers to progress into higher education, which will help keep the company at the leading-edge of its industry.

When launching the programme, John Hayes, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, said: “I have put apprenticeships at the heart of our skills strategy because they encourage ambition and enterprise, and help drive economic and social progress. These awards offer a great platform for young people and employers to gain recognition not just for excelling in their chosen field, but for playing a leading part in that vital process.”

Charles Maltby is Technical and Commercial Director at Shearline, which has been offering Engineering and Technology apprenticeships for the last 17 years. He says:

“Our apprentices are invaluable to us; a quarter of our employees have come through our apprenticeship scheme. So we are really pleased to see government provide funding that will enable us to expand our programme beyond school leavers to offer new opportunities for skills development to longer-serving employees.”

The cutting-edge company currently employs six apprentices, with two more ready to start later this year.

“We know that many people leave school with little idea of what they want to do, and a few years of work can help them decide. So we’re very happy to take on people who have spent time doing something else and are looking for a career change, or school leavers who want an alternative to university.

“What we look for is someone with a hands-on attitude and a love of solving problems. How old they are or what they’re doing at the moment is less important.”

Shearline prides itself in nurturing apprentices with a range of transferable skills and producing a dynamic programme to meet the unique demands of the competitive engineering and manufacturing industry. Shearline apprentices develop diverse skills, from welding to CAD, and the opportunity to use lathes, milling machines, brake presses and laser cutters.

But training doesn’t finish at the end of an apprenticeship. Wayne Harrison, Shearline’s Training Officer, says: “We are constantly investing in new technology and looking at ways to develop our manufacturing process. This means machinists are learning throughout their careers.

“We’re dedicated to investing in staff training so have applied for government funding to help boost our post-apprenticeship scheme. Our apprentices are the kind of people who are always taking opportunities, and we’re pleased that one of the apprentices set to complete their 4 year programme this year is heading on to do a BTEC.”

An apprenticeship allows workers to embark upon an exciting career with broad employment opportunities. Wayne says: “Anyone who has completed an apprenticeship is highly employable, and we really value their skills.

“My advice to anyone who is out of work or who just finds their job uninspiring is to think of alternatives. It’s not too late to retrain, and there are exciting opportunities to learn different skills and get in to whole new fields.”

Shearline are currently recruiting skilled machinists to work in their ShearXL division, which manufactures large parts for aircraft, performance cars and wind turbines.

The company is participating in the WorldSkills, where young people compete to be the best of the best in their vocational skill. Skills range from hair dressing to cabinet making and Shearline will enter the CNC milling and turning category.

Charles Maltby, Technical and Commercial Director at the precision engineering company Shearline, explains that the company has put together a consortium of leaders in the industry to bid for European funding (FP7) that could see the company developing the largest facility for Magnesium Thixomoulding in the UK.

“Magnesium is an exciting metal, and Thixomoulding allows alloys to be moulded into structures that are strong and light, and require reduced processing. An ideal application is seat structures for airplanes; reducing the weight of seating by 35% will make a huge difference to the energy consumption of the aircraft.

“Our bid team includes: Magnesium Elektron, a UK company that has developed the alloys; JSW/Buhler, makers of injection moulding equipment; Sirris, a Belgian research organization with their own existing generation Thixomoulding machine; and AM2 a German company led by Bernd Wendinger, an authority in this field. These commercial partners together with the University of Sheffield and the Advanced Forming Research Centre, linked to the University of Strathclyde offer a strong team with worldclass expertise.”

The consortium will look to expand knowledge of the commercial applications of the technology. Thixomoulding uses a semi-solid state for the alloy to allow it to smoothly fill even complex shape moulds. The resulting structures can have thinner walls than conventional die-casting and a higher resistance to fatigue and corrosion. These qualities mean a wide range of industries could benefit from using Magnesium, with applications ranging from medical devices to defence equipment.

Shearline already has a Knowledge Transfer Partnership Associate from the University of Shefield, Rachel Peachey, working in the company to evaluate the properties of the new alloys, which offer significant improvements over existing ones.

She explains that repeatability is one of the advantages of Thixomoulding: “With traditional casting there can be a lot of scrapage because the parts are not of consistent quality. One company we have spoken to are forced to reject about two in every five gearbox housings because the process they are using cannot ensure that each box is of a sufficient standard. Thixomoulding can overcome this problem because each part a mould produces is identical, so the company is excited by its potential.”

Thixomoulding can produce accurate and complex shapes, which means that multi-part assemblies can often be modified to use just one or two parts, reducing the energy used during both the manufacturing and assembly processes.

The company is keen to explore the potential of using the process for relatively large structures within the aerospace, automotive, defence and other high tech sectors, so part of the proposal is to install a ‘large-size’ Thixomoulding machine at Shearline’s Ely premises. This would enable industries all over Europe to access the many benefits of Magnesium Thixomoulding.

Charles concludes: “Thixomoulding has many environmental benefits – the manufacturing process reduces energy usage and waste, and the lightweight parts it can produce have the potential to make huge improvements to efficiency in the transport industry. We’re very excited to be developing the process and exploring its vast range of applications.”

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John Hayes, Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, said:

“The annual Apprenticeship Awards recognise individuals who have achieved so much through hard work and good instruction and highlight the commitment many employers have made to invest in their workforce.

“Apprenticeships play a huge role in providing the skills we need to build an advanced economy. They help get young people into work, boost productivity and improve competitiveness. For this Government, skills are a priority and Apprenticeships are at the heart of our determination to produce a new generation of craftsmen capable of building a highly skilled, competitive economy.”

Wayne Harrison, Apprentice Training Officer from Shearline said:

“I am extremely proud of our Apprenticeship programme at Shearline and it is fantastic to be recognised on a national scale.”

The cutting-edge company offers Engineering and Technology Apprenticeships and currently employs four apprentices. It is extremely dedicated to investing in staff training and Apprenticeships. Over 15 years, the firm has prided itself in nurturing apprentices with a range of transferable skills and producing a dynamic programme to meet the unique demands of the business and the industry it works in.

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Aerospace and Automotive capability enhanced with scale-up

Aerospace and defence clients have welcomed the news that precision manufacturing company Shearline has extended its capabilities and has established the new ShearXL division. This will enable it to handle large-scale precision engineering of infrastructure components for rotary and fixed wing aircraft, vehicle gearbox housings, and wind turbine parts.

With this development, the company will be uniquely positioned to offer rapid prototyping and manufacture for a much wider size range of components in materials from lightweight alloys through to steels.

The capabilities of the existing company and its new division are highly complementary, as Charles Maltby, Technical and Commercial Director of Shearline, explains.

“Shearline’s work has until now typically been CNC machined components that fit in a shoe-box. We now have the ability to accurately manufacture on a much larger scale, with 5-axis machines able to handle parts up to 700mm cubed and 3-axis to 900mm cubed. For one of our MoD clients this now means we can do the whole job in-house.”

The expansion has occurred following the acquisition by Shearline of a nearby engineering firm which had a strong reputation in the automotive and auto sports industries and held a key role within the cluster of these industries in the East of England. The news that this resource was to be retained and enhanced by Shearline has been welcomed by companies across the region.

Mark Cullum, recently appointed Sales Manager for ShearXL, comments,

“There are many synergies between the autosports and aerospace industries. Both require stringent quality standards and knowledge of handling aluminium alloys, steel, ceramics and other specialist materials. We are encouraged by the discussions we are having with companies such as Prodrive in Banbury. There are lots of opportunities out there and Shearline has reached the critical size needed to provide the full range of supply chain services these companies require.”

Shearline offers a full manufacturing service, from technical consultancy, prototyping and design-for-manufacture through to full scale production, assembly and finishing. The company now holds BS EN 9100 (AS9100), ISO9001 and ISO 14001:2004 certification for environmental management systems.

The company is particularly proud to have been awarded the prestigious AS9100 international quality standard, which was originally developed to standardise aerospace quality expectations on a global level. This achievement has opened the door to significant new work for the company.