Engineering
North East England has been recognised for many years for its excellence in engineering. This excellence continues to this day with engineers from this region working across the world in the construction, process, oil and gas industries. Indeed such modern day iconic symbols as the arch over Wembley Stadium was designed and built by the Darlington based Cleveland Bridge Company.
20% of NEPIC members are engineering related companies and all Process Industry companies have an internal engineering function. Some Process Industry companies continue to have a broad in-house capability but these days there is an increasing reliance on contracted out engineering services and resources.
The Process Industries are the largest manufacturing sector in the region therefore it is the largest user of engineering support. Consequently major users of these resources collaborate through NEPIC to gain a view of likely peaks and troughs in the engineering man-hours of both major projects and large scale maintenance shutdowns.
The broad capability is demonstrated by the number of small, medium and large engineering companies that have bases in North East England that are involved in the design, construction and commissioning of major process industry projects. This includes companies such as ABB Engineering Services, Aker Kvaerner, AMEC, WorleyParsons Europe, Foster Wheeler Energy, Doosan Babcock, K Home International, Baker Mallett, Stopford Engineering and Parsons Brincherhoff.
Companies involved in minor capital works, turnarounds, maintenance and some specialist services are Altec Engineering, Balfour Beatty Engineering Services, Carillion PME, Costain Energy & Process, Cordell Group, Entec UK, Redhall Engineering, Faithful+Gould, Lorien Engineering Solutions, Hertel and TAS Engineering.
There are many others providing specialist disciplines such as fabrication, machining, cranage, scaffolding, none destructive testing (NDT) Inspection, leak sealing, facilities management, QS and legal advice. There are also a number of agencies who provide engineering manpower e.g. Solutions Recruitment, Wolviston Management, Kelly Engineering Resources and NRG Group.
NEPIC facilitates combined links for the Process Industry and these engineering companies to Universities, colleges and Training Organisations such as TTE, NETA & TDR as well as the Sector Skills Councils - Cogent and SEMTA.
We also collaborate with other organisations that promote Engineering in the region including the Tees Valley Engineering Partnership, NOF Energy, County Durham Engineering Forum, Northern Defence Industries (NDI) and the Energy Industries Council.
The NEPIC Process Engineering Group (PEG), along with the Skills and Education and Manufacturing and Productivity Teams all address issues of common concern to both engineering and the Process sector, including issues such as industrial relations, resource availability, competency, efficiency, industry profile and market intelligence. All these groups facilitate collaboration within the sector.
Recent activity within the sector, has lead the team to explore Engineering Diversification on Teesside, which is a topic within the Tees Valley Industrial Programme (TVIP) and focuses on the sustainability and growth of the engineering supply chain.
NEPIC and Tees Valley Engineering Partnership (TVEP) made a successful joint bid to One North East to carry out a study into business support opportunities for Engineering Maintenance companies. The purpose of this study is:
- To gain an understanding of the engineering opportunities that are currently under development in the emerging technologies and traditional manufacturing expansion
- Recognise specific accreditations, certification and competency to access the opportunities within point
- Identify the existing engineering supply chain ambitions, concerns and problems
The outcome will be a range of projects to be carried out over the next two years which will address the gaps in capability, the access to work opportunities and marketing skills.
Elsewhere, the group continues to work with its stakeholders to support all of its engineering members in identifying and putting in place initiatives which promote productivity improvement. Following the release of the Gibson Review in quarter four 2009, which explored Productivity in the UK Construction Industry, the NEPIC PEG held a conference to discuss the priorities for future action.
The principle priorities include learning from good practice in the maintenance arena, supervision and the ‘Super Supervisor’ and ACTIVE and Trust. Some of these may give rise to future workshop events. NEPIC will continue to engage with relevant national bodies such as Capital Projects Client Group (CPCG); Engineering Construction Industry Association (ECIA); Engineering Construction Industry Training Board (ECITB) and the Gibson Review Forum and where appropriate will consider joint workshop events.
