Teesside’s Materials Processing Institute adds steel to national organisation’s training

A research and innovation centre has delivered a training course for a national employers’ organisation working to strengthen the country’s steel sector.

The Materials Processing Institute worked with UK Steel on a two-day course.

Entitled ‘Introduction to Steelmaking Processes’, the programme was put together by management coach David Egner and attended by UK Steel’s entire team at its London headquarters.

David, a strategic accounts manager at the Institute, which is based on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, said: “The challenge was to deliver a training programme to an audience with wide-ranging variations of prior knowledge while also making the course meaningful and beneficial to all participants.

“To do this, rather than using one of our off-the-shelf courses, we decided to create a specific programme to meet the requirements of UK Steel using the vast suite of knowledge we have available at the Materials Processing Institute.”

Chris McDonald, chief executive, added: “As a research and innovation centre, we have amassed a wealth of expertise and industry knowledge across a wide variety of processes.

“We are dedicated to working collaboratively with businesses and organisations, such as UK Steel, to meet their exact training requirements.”

UK Steel champions the country’s steel manufacturers and works to lobby Government on strategy to best serve the sector’s interests, and Gareth Stace, the organisation’s director general, said the training has had a positive impact on its staff.

He added: “Considering that as a team, we have widely different levels of steel sector knowledge, we all emerged from the sessions with a significantly enhanced understanding.

“The content of the course and its delivery was excellent.”

The Materials Processing Institute has delivered steel industry training courses for a number of years, covering a wide range of topics including steelmaking, continuous casting, ironmaking, cokemaking, metallurgy and technology management.

It also runs workshops and other courses based on specialist requirements, ranging from electric arc furnaces to casting defects and mould powders.