New training track for the SPITZKE Group
The new training track not only strengthens the training in Bochum, but is also available to all the apprentices in the Group. The training management concept is to optimise the training structures at the different sites and to connect them better. The aim of connecting them is for all SPITZKE branches to benefit from each other’s approaches to training by creating learning opportunities for all apprentices.
The idea of a separate practical skills training environment for the civil engineering apprentices had been being developed at SPITZKE for some time. The project was implemented in close coordination with the central training management and the management at KPZ West. The planning and execution was carried out by the apprentice civil engineering workers Marvin, Robin, Christian, Yousef and Emirhan with support from two-way machinist Marvin. The team were tasked with constructing a new 20 m long railway track with wooden, steel and concrete sleepers. Their supervisors gave them free rein with ‘their construction site’ and only gave advice.
It quickly became clear that the young people fully engaged with the project. They completed all their tasks with great zeal and started by constructing the subgrade. To do this, they calculated all the heights themselves. During the transition from steel sleepers to concrete sleepers, it turned out that the track was too high – a calculation error that was deliberately not corrected immediately by their more experienced colleagues. “When the track had a visible kink, the trainees had to lower it by hand. That certainly won’t happen to them again”, says our site manager Daniel, who helped organise and supervise the project as a training officer. He was particularly enthusiastic about the group’s team spirit: the team members supported each other and everyone found their own role to play independently.
With the new training track in Bochum, which is available to all apprentices, training across the entire group of companies has been strengthened – conceptualised by training management and then executed by the motivated Bochum civil engineering apprentices.
Incidentally, a practical skills training environment is also available in Dortmund for the UB A/E skilled workers. Here they become familiar with the various masts, chain drives, hangers and booms. The facility is used between November and March and is the result of a training coordinators meeting and the cross-site training matrix.
