In addition to their academic sessions, apprentices develop practical skills in line with the core business of Hydram, which leads towards an NVQ level 3.
Apprentices gain not only the technical knowledge which is delivered onsite by members of Hydram’s training team, but also the necessary practical skills on the latest production machinery:
Most of Hydram’s sheet metal products begin life as flat metal sheet up to 3 meters long by 1.5 meters wide. You will learn to operate some of the most advanced sheet metal processing equipment available today worth millions of pounds with our CNC laser cutting and punching machines. We’ll also train you to operate our tube processing laser.
Flat sheet profiles are bent to shape in our folding section and you need to be over 18 to operate these machines. You’ll be able to try your hand and welding and if you are good at it, you will be given the opportunity to hone your skills before welding production parts.
Some of our previous apprentices have programmed our three robotic welding cells. You will be given the opportunity to program, set and operate our Haas CNC machining centres to mill and turn production parts.
Hydram is proud to have its own powder coating systems in order to be able to supply completed metal products to its customers. You will be able to try your hand at spraying and learn to work in a team to ensure that the automated systems are kept running at maximum efficiency.
The advanced assembly area is always busy will parts arriving from all over the factory. It is important that you learn to follow the standard operating procedures and organise your work area to keep up with the hourly production rates.
You will quickly learn that quality is the most important aspect of your work at Hydram. You will learn how to read engineering drawings and spend time working with our quality technicians, learning how to use all the inspection equipment available.
Apprentices spend at least two weeks working in the office environment, being exposed to many different roles within the business, from engineering design, project and production engineering, commercial, purchasing and IT.
