“There, future is within”
Centre of excellence itself is training now
Bayreuth. Andreas Popp got the job: The young man from Speichersdorf is the first, who passes a professional training at the centre of excellence New Materials Bayreuth. It will last three years until Andreas Popp becomes process engineer for plastics and rubber. One with special skills.
At the centre of excellence, it can be experienced even more dramatically, what many businesses worry about abundantly by now: Good personnel would gladly be employed, but these ones are few and far between on the employment market. “Here, the problem is certainly present in a notably extent”, says Christian Traßl, who manages the domain plastics at the centre of excellence. Particle foams are fabricated and cultivated, fibre-reinforced composites and other new high-tech substances ascertained, concrete amendments and rectifications are filed out in cooperation with industrial concerns. Trassl: “Our spectrum is very broad and so the demands on the employees are also high.”
Qualified technicians always stand a chance at the centre of excellence – however, watching for them that they introduce themselves there is not intended any more. “A year ago, we set the course to be able to educate now”, says the executive director of the centre of excellence of Bayreuth, Dr. Dieter Kunz. “We can do something on our own, to supply ourselves with the most important thing that a company needs: with good personnel.”
60 percent of the employees of the centre of excellence had academic training, are scientists. The remaining 40 percent however, which Andreas Popp also belongs to now, are qualified technicians. Practitioners with know-how and creativity. Waiting for Andreas Popp is the exciting cooperation with scientists, the task to combine theory and practice. Andreas Popp will have to teach the machine of production what the scientists want, and vice versa teach the scientists how machine and material react. Interplay, which can be fascinating. “We want to learn to understand more about the processes”, says Kunz. “This is our main assignment.” In theory and practice.
Gigantic prospects
The 18-year-old man from Speichersdorf, whom Kunz certifies that he would be exactly the one due to his enthusiasm and creativity, is panting for his new job: “The perspectives in the domain of plastics are gigantic”, says the graduate of the technical secondary school of Bayreuth. “There is so much changing, so much on the move – there, future is within.”
Benefits from knowledge and expertise of his instructor Dirk Pessler (right): Trainee Andreas Popp – here with his two bosses Dr. Dieter Kunz and Christian Trassl (left).
Source: Nordbayerischer Kurier of September 5th 2008. Download (PDF, 719 kb).