Northgate places technician training with Mercedes-Benz 21 June 2011

Mercedes-Benz UK's National Apprentice Academy is to welcome its first external trainees next September –12 apprentices with the manufacturer's biggest LCV customer Northgate Vehicle Hire.

Access to the Academy has previously been restricted to employees of Mercedes-Benz UK and its franchised dealer network: 250 Mercedes-Benz technician apprentices are currently in training.

However, after securing nearly £1 million worth of funding from the government-backed Skills Funding Agency's expanded apprenticeship programme to help it train the next generation of technicians, Mercedes-Benz is now marketing its Academy to third parties.

Northgate group training manager Ian Dunn explains that the firm runs a fleet of around 12,500 Mercedes-Benz vans which it maintains in house.

"The Mercedes-Benz team is clearly very professional and the results speak for themselves," says Dunn. "The facilities at Denbigh are state-of-the-art but there's also a strong emphasis on what I would describe as traditional values.

"Some training schemes amount to little more than a box-ticking exercise, but Mercedes-Benz is providing a proper, high quality apprenticeship that promises to turn out motivated, proficient individuals who will be a real asset to our business."

Vehicle apprenticeships typically take three or even four years to achieve. Mercedes-Benz compresses this into two years, with youngsters attending the Academy for a total of 20 one-week blocks of training. Extra work is allocated through e-learning and other small projects. Meanwhile, on-the-job assessments are made every eight weeks, as opposed to the 12-weekly industry norm.

The Denbigh, Milton Keynes Mercedes-Benz Apprentice Academy opened in 2008 and has 12 bays with Star Diagnostic equipment, three of them dedicated to light commercial vehicles. It offers apprenticeships and advanced apprenticeships on a range of light and heavy vehicle maintenance and repair, and parts operations programmes.

Author
Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Mercedes-Benz UK Ltd
Northgate Vehicle Hire Ltd

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