Assembly Skills Academy – Innovative learning so our Fitters can be their best

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Assembly Skills Academy – Innovative learning so our Fitters can be their best

John Siviter, Assembly Skills Academy Manager, has worked at Rolls-Royce for 22 years and spent 16 years as a Fitter. For the last six years, he’s taken us on a journey to transform how we train, assess, and certify Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace Fitters.

As part of our group-wide learning offer, Leatro, John has built a new programme called the Assembly Skills Academy. Along with our learning team and a new generation of instructors and assessors upskilled from Fitter roles, John and his team have reinvented our training offer and learner experience.

Training has been moved from a combination of theoretical learning combined with supervised training and assessment on a live production line, into a dedicated assembly workshop in our Learning & Development Centre in Derby. John himself is now qualified to train our instructors and the Academy has been given the authority to certify Fitters on behalf of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in preparation for their ‘stamp’ – the CAA’s certification to fit Rolls-Royce engines legally.

John says, “Six years ago, we started with our licence to operate course as a proof of concept to show the business benefit in terms of cost, time to train, minimising production and customer impact – all with the focus on prioritising safety and quality. We’ve built the programme from there and 2022 launched vertical stack, horizontal build, and fan case build courses. Every new process rolled out in production – parts, equipment, technology, specifications – is also rolled out in the Assembly Training Workshop. Now, we’re launching specific module build training courses to increase productivity and breadth of skills on the line.”

Not only has the Academy improved the experience, learners can now achieve the required ‘Licence to Operate’ in 4 weeks, and achieve their stamp from 13 weeks.

Practical learning in a safe environment

Practical learning in a safe environment

The programme has been a particular benefit to Apprentices and cross-industry fitters joining Rolls-Royce. From basics such as tool knowledge, through to building essential hand skills for the role and getting their Licence to Operate, the workshop environment allows focused learning in a safe space for learners and the product.

Instructor John Hollingworth echoes this “When I joined the company, I trained on the shop floor. In here, learners can learn by doing the work with a dedicated instructor, can make mistakes and apply their learnings in a safe environment”

Instructor Ian Bloor adds, “It’s a huge benefit to the business and the learners. The purpose is to practice and develop competency job specific skills as if you were assembling on the line. To be certified to build an engine stack can take 12-18 months in the Production Test Facility. Now, we can teach the stack modules in 4 weeks, giving same level of practical experience and exposure to the engine. On the shop floor you might only see a certain module every 10 weeks due to shift patterns and workload.”

Upskilling experienced Fitters

It’s not just our apprentices and new hires that benefit from our Assembly Academy. Our experienced Fitters can broaden their skill set and be moved around different production lines more efficiently via the Academy’s four-week module courses, increasing flexibility for the business.

Anthony Dunne brings the benefit of the new learning approach to life. Anthony first trained as a Fitter at Rolls-Royce 25 years ago. With shifts, training and certification was to the same high standards, but took much longer.

“Back then, we had to learn written instructions, commit them to memory and then we were tested on our knowledge. When training, we’d be training on one engine on the line, then come back into a different engine at a different stage. There could also be long gaps of theory between getting practical experience.”

Anthony re-joined us eight weeks ago and is currently training on new product modules. “Now in the Academy, it’s brilliant. I can train intensively on the same module and learn by doing the work. It’s really streamlined the training and I’ll be operationally ready quickly”.

And the learning doesn’t stop once certified. Through Leatro, all our colleagues globally have on demand access to all our courses in any skill, along with supporting LinkedIn Learning content. It means our Fitters can upskill in any area they want to, when they want to, so that they can always be at their best.

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