Promoting business excellence at Siemens Mechanical Drives

Graduate engineers will play key role in future UK manufacturing
Siemens Mechanical Drives (MD) in Leeds is benefiting from the fresh ideas of young graduate engineers, who will play a major role in the way future engineering and manufacturing is carried out in the UK.

Engineering graduates studying with the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at Cambridge University recently spent a fortnight at the Leeds factory of Siemens Mechanical Drives. Working in two teams, they looked at capacity planning and service elements and were able to suggest improvements that will have a significant and positive impact on the business. The visit is the second year Siemens has worked with the IfM and forms part of Siemens’ continuous improvement programme.

Matt Byrom, process transformation manager in Siemens’ Business Excellence team, arranged the visits, and commented: "There are some very bright students with innovative ideas coming into the industry, and they will certainly help transform it in the future. We are delighted to welcome them into our engineering culture, to give them a chance to see real engineering and manufacturing in operation and to help improve it. It has great benefits for all parties."

The students’ presentations to Siemens at the end of their time at Leeds counted towards their final degree grades of Masters in Engineering at Cambridge University.