Companies in the food and drink manufacturing sector have
been urged to improve training and development to close the productivity gap
with their international rivals.
A report by the Food and Drink National Training
Organisation shows that although the performance of the UK’s industry has
improved slightly over the last three years, it is still behind Japan, the USA
and the rest of Europe.
Because of this, the Food and Drink NTO wants to see skills
shortages in the industry eased with the help of an increased focus on training
and development.
Tom Evans, chief executive of the Food and Drink NTO, said,
"Training and development is something that the industry can tackle
independently and will have a beneficial impact on time lost due to
manufacturing faults and breakdowns.
"Companies need to match their training programmes to
job specifications and build training into the planning, purchasing and
commissioning of new equipment at an early stage.
"One reason that companies with new equipment have high
levels of downtime is that employees are not trained sufficiently in how to use
the new plant."
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