Fresh meat for cranfield's lean training

Cranfield University's Fellowship in Manufacturing Management for the Red Meat Industry has been a big success and it is inviting applications for the next 18 month course, starting on June 22.

The course aims to tutor managers in the red meat industry in lean techniques, which can be applied to production, processing or even sales, boosting efficiency and significantly cutting costs.

Students are assigned coaches from the University who monitor them on the job, encouraging them to apply their studies. There are also residential modules, lasting no more than a week each.

The Red Meat Industry Forum (RMIF) supplied initial funding to set up the course. The English Beef and Lamb Executive and the British Pig Executive fund recruitment and promotion.

Giving their final presentations, students explained how the training had benefited their businesses. Managers from firms such as Dunbia and Anglo Beef Processors said the programme had helped them identify more efficient use of machinery, better kit positioning and shrewd ways to organise and motivate staff. This had enabled them to save tens of thousands of pounds from the bottom line.

Firms pay £20,000 to sponsor managers on the course, which requires a minimum quota of 14 people, of which half have already expressed interest for the coming year. Teaching is provided by Cranfield University, the Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing and the Danish Meat Training College at Roskilde, Denmark.

Cranfield has run a generic Fellowship in Manufacturing Management since 1977, applying similar training to all industries, but the RMIF felt something more specific was needed for the red meat supply chain.

Dr Martin Grantley-Smith, chief executive of the RMIF, now part of the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), says: "Meat companies were being held back by inability to recruit and retain modern-thinking managers. Before this, there were virtually no graduate courses in food management. We thought if we could train up good people they would be more inclined to want to stay with companies."

Elsewhere, Cranfield University's School of Health is launching an MSc in Food Chain Systems, examining the whole food chain, from pre-harvest to market. Topics include pesticide use and soil quality; nutrition; management; and bacterial and fungal microbiology.

Teaching will take place at the University's Cranfield campus in Bedfordshire and will consist of 10 taught modules part-time over two or three years or full-time from October to March.