A Durham manufacturer of environmentally friendly outdoor furniture and play equipment has sought the expertise of University Centre Quayside (UCQ)’s work-based learning team in an effort to bolster its operational efficiency and strengthen its workforce’s skills.
Marmax Recycled Products is an award winning manufacturer of 100% recycled plastic outdoor furniture and play equipment. All of its products are delivered fully assembled, maintenance-free and handmade to order from its base in County Durham.
The firm was looking to retrain/upskill its production and warehouse staff to develop their competence, improve their efficiency and deepen their understanding of how their products are manufactured and moved around the site.
For this, they turned to Newcastle-based UCQ.
UCQ’s work-based learning team delivered a number of courses that helped develop Marmax’s operational staff over the past nine months.
Now the majority of its production and warehouse staff have completed the NVQ level 2 in Performing Manufacturing Operations, Level 2 Certificate in Warehousing and Storage, Level 2 Award in Industrial Environment Awareness.
On top of this, all staff have completed the Level 2 award in Health and Safety within the Workplace.
Dave Johnson, general manager at Marmax Recycled Products, said: “Choosing the right courses was made easier by discussing our requirements with the business development team at UCQ and we are grateful to Chris McCormick and Sam Easson for recommending an excellent range of courses.
“The delivery of the training and supporting the workplace observations and evidence collation was excellent and we would like to thank Charlotte Mapletoft, Sue Burn and Peter Brewis for their support, guidance and patience when aiding our learners through the qualification process.
“These qualifications have confirmed the competence of our staff and reinforced their capability to complete their daily tasks in a safe and efficient manner. It has also given them confidence to provide ideas to improve their working environment and how our products are manufactured and moved around our site”
Samantha Easson, project manager at UCQ, said: “We loved working with the team at Marmax and seeing how much everyone progressed… it has been a pleasure to meet their training plan for the year and provide them with the additional compliance training which they have welcomed and embraced.”
Visit UCQ’s work-based learning page for more information on the programme or email sam.easson@ucq.ac.uk or chris.mccormick@ucq.ac.uk
