Almost 100 14 to 15-year-olds from Greater Manchester will conjuror up a new breakfast cereal as well as designing, installing and costing the machinery and factory layout as part of The Manufacturing Institute’s ‘Make It campaign.
Kellogg’s Manchester plant director Tony O’Brien said the firm couldn’t wait to see the students’ ideas.
Rewarding careers
“This event is a great chance for us to show Greater Manchester’s young people how complex, challenging and ultimately rewarding a career in manufacturing can be,” he said.
O’Brien said it was important for firms such as Kellogg to encourage talented, enterprising people in to the sector.
“Kellogg’s Manchester Factory recently celebrated its 77th birthday. You never know – there could be students at the Make It event who’ll be with us when we reach our centennial.”
Teams will do battle on June 24 at the AJ Bell stadium in Salford and is a collaboration between The Manufacturing Institute and Kellogg and involves schools from Altrincham, Trafford, Stretford, Walkden, Whalley Range, Timperley and Crumpsall.
They will complete a series of tasks, each taking on job roles from plant director to operations managers through to finance, sales and marketing managers.
They will then pitch their fully-costed ideas to a Dragons’ Den style panel who will then choose the winning team who are presented with a trophy and entered in to the Make It Grand Final at Manchester Airport’s Concorde event centre on September 22.
Crucial to the economy
Stephanie Boyle, who runs the Make It programme for The Manufacturing Institute, said: “Manufacturing and engineering are crucial to our economy and it’s essential that we attract the brightest young people to work in the sector.”
Meanwhile, the Food Manufacture Group is searching for the generation of industry managers to be crowned Young Talent of the Year.
This award aims to recognise emerging young talent within the UK food and drink manufacturing sector. For more information, including how to enter, click here.