News & events
Muller Dairy takes action
25.03.2010
The development of the Diplomas has been one of the most radical changes to teaching and learning in recent history. What has been created is a series of qualifications for 14 to 19 year olds which enables young people to engage with employers and participate in work-related learning in an applied context. The Diploma is vital to the development of true employability skills amongst our future workforce.
To date over 5,000 employers have been involved in shaping the Diplomas, along with universities, colleges, training providers and teachers. Many more employers are working with teachers to provide challenging, work-relevant learning by designing projects, hosting site visits and mentoring young people. This is a huge step forward for our manufacturing sector and an exciting development for modern education.
An excellent example of a business which has become heavily involved with Diploma students in this fashion is Müller Dairy. The Stoke consortium approved to deliver the Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design (MPD), linked up with Müller to deliver the unit of the qualification focused on designing and developing products for manufacture. Within this unit, students are required to learn aspects such as the stages of research and development and how they add value to the manufacturing process, as well as gain an understanding of the issues affecting design and development of products and how to produce a product proposal document.
The work with Müller Dairy started with a site visit for the students. During this they learnt specifics about both Müller’s business – their product and packaging designs and brand – and about the wider sector within which they operate – competitors, quality standards and a number of other key aspects. This visit gave the students an insight into working in food and drink, and the different job roles in the sub-sector. The Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design was developed by the five manufacturing sector skills councils with this aim in mind. They have worked in partnership to develop and launch the new qualification. Improve, the sector skills council for food and drink, has and continues to lead on this and also works with a wide range of employers across the sub-sector including Müller Dairy. The company has worked with Improve and helped to raise skills levels by contributing to the development of National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Dairy, and mapping out the job roles and occupations.
At the end of the Müller site visit, which was held in September, the students were given a live project brief with a deadline set for three months later. A date in December was identified at which point the students would present their research findings, recommendations and prototypes to a Müller Dairy marketing manager and research and development professional.
This technique of combining theory with practice typifies the approach of the Diplomas and aims to provide a well-balanced learning experience which is still academically robust.
The Müller Dairy brief was to design and develop a new healthy snack product. The brief was kept flexible to enable the students to demonstrate their creativity and strategic thinking in terms of undertaking research, selecting a demographic to target and considering key aspects such as a recommended retail price, size, form, nutrition, packaging and branding for the product.
These are the type of challenges young people may face in a real-life work situation, giving them the chance to approach them in a controlled environment will give them a better idea of what to expect when they leave education.
Back in the classroom, the Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design students started off with team building exercises, to help to develop soft skills such as team working, leadership and communication. They then embarked on the project, with lesson delivery tailored around the unit specification.
Learning incorporated into the project covered a broad range of aspects from food safety and hygiene to the use of industry standard software including Corel Draw, Office suite, Apple OSX and Adobe Photoshop.
In addition to the technical work came the opportunity for creativity. The student teams engaged in brainstorming sessions which helped them to identify the aspects of the design of the snack products which would be most important to retailers, consumers and designers.
The next stage of the project was to conduct both primary and secondary research into Müller Dairy’s competitors and the products currently on the market. This informed the final 3D designs and prototypes which were presented to the Müller Dairy executives on the assessment day in December.
And the outcome…?
“Remarkable results, truly impressive. We were not expecting anything close to the amount or quality of work that the students have produced.”
Diana Griffiths, Marketing Manager, Müller Dairy Little Stars.
“We’ve been working on this project with Müller Dairy for the last three months. I have loved this project and would definitely recommend this Diploma to people choosing their options at the moment.
I have had fun, worked hard and learnt a lot. I really enjoyed learning how to use the design software, and am really pleased with my designs. Müller seemed quite impressed too! My goal is to learn as much as I can about design.
I want to go to university and then hope to become a designer for a big company like Müller Dairy.“
Nathan Burton, Stoke on Trent Diploma in MPD student, 14 years old
“I have really strengthened my ICT skills this year thanks to the Diploma in MPD and I am looking forward to the next project; I think that we will be working with a local theatre.”
Tamure Hussain, Stoke on Trent Diploma in MPD student, 14 years old
