“We see a growing need for well-trained specialists, and the construction of our new training workshop sets us up for taking on up to 60 apprentices each year,” says Bernhard Schretter, Member of the Executive Board of the Plansee Group. Currently, 40 apprentices are being taken on each year. Schretter made the strategy clear: “We will continue to train apprentices for our own needs in the future.” The construction schedule is ambitious: By the end of the year, it is intended that the timber-framed shell should be winter-proof. This will be followed by interior finishing, after which the machines and plant equipment will be relocated. The new training center is due to go into operation at the beginning of the new academic year in September 2020. At the same time, the vocational school will also be expanded. New classrooms and IT rooms as well as laboratories for hydraulics, pneumatics and electrical engineering will accommodate the growing number of students. Plansee will also make this infrastructure available to the new Higher Technical Institute (HTL) for industrial engineering with a training focus on applied business IT.
While the majority of apprentices currently come from the Außerfern region, the number of apprentices from the Allgäu region is already at ten percent and rising. The apprentices value the company's own vocational school – the site offers a complete range of training in all metalworking professions. Schretter: "Above all, we are proud that 30 percent of the apprentices at Plansee and Ceratizit are girls who are training in technology-oriented trades."
In addition to job-specific theoretical and practical skills, vocational training at Plansee places great emphasis on personal development. Teamwork and projects are the order of the day. Excursions to other companies provide an important wider perspective. "Parents are always saying how well their children are coming along with us," says Bernhard Schretter happily. And, something Schretter is particularly proud of: “We have been following a path of combining careers and apprenticeships for decades. Many of our longstanding, seasoned managers started their careers with an apprenticeship at Plansee and Ceratizit.”
Plansee and Ceratizit currently offer the following apprenticeships: Metallurgical technician with cutting technology and mechanical engineering as the primary modules, process technician, materials engineering technician, electrical engineer, chemical laboratory technician, office administrator and the new IT career of information technologist.
Detailed information about the apprenticeship at Plansee HERE.