Academy Lead Apprentice Change

Uniserve Group and the Supply Chain Academy are leading the drive to change the government’s approach to supply chain apprenticeships and to enable business to spend their apprenticeship levy on a single unified methodology for developing carrier paths in our sector.

Uniserve Group HR Director – Paul Stone – met with the Institute for Apprenticeships (IfA) in Coventry last week, to discuss the lack of apprenticeship standards within logistics and transport, which is resulting in businesses being unable to spend their apprenticeship levies and potentially losing out.

Paul is also chairman of the trailblazer group, which is developing the world’s first supply chain degree apprenticeship, and during the discussions, which also included chairs of other trailblazer groups, voiced the need for clarity and an industry standard model.

Paul urged the attendees to adopt the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) terminology and standards to categorise all supply chain apprenticeships, which was backed by all.

Members of the group agreed to change the title  of some of the currently labelled ‘Supply Chain’  apprenticeship standards, to more specific titles, such as ‘Transport’ or ‘Warehousing’ to align them with the SCOR model and to make them more identifiable with a particular supply chain activity.

The group also agreed that the title ‘Supply Chain’ should only apply to higher level apprenticeships, such as Degree and Masters, that encompass learning around all of the supply chain business activities.

Pictures: Paul Stone and the Supply Chain Academy.

The SCOR model describes the business activities associated with all phases of satisfying a customer’s demand. The model itself is organized around the six primary management processes of Plan, Source, Make, Deliver, Return and Enable. Using these process building blocks, the SCOR model can be used to describe supply chains that are very simple or very complex using a common set of definitions across disparate industries.

SCOR spans all customer interactions (quote to cash), all physical material transactions (procure to payment, including equipment, supplies, spare parts, bulk product, software, etc.) and all market interactions (manufacturing, from the understanding of aggregate demand to the fulfilment of each order).

There is still work to be done to move this forward and the Supply Chain Academy will be speaking to other supply chain institutes and professional bodies to discuss a more universal adoption of the SCOR model before progressing further.

Paul commented “This is a great opportunity for all of the representative bodies to come together and to speak with  one voice about supply chain career planning for anyone in the industry, whilst maintaining and strengthening their own specialism. The benefit would be a better understanding by the government, the public and young people of the complex supply chain industry and the opportunities it  offers for  broad ranging  and rewarding careers.

“A joined-up, clear and  understandable Supply Chain industry career path is long overdue and can only help us generate interest and address the gap in skills that we currently suffer in the industry. I am very excited about the prospect and would  encourage professional bodies, HEI’s and employers who have an interest in promoting careers and apprenticeships in the industry to contact me and to join the group”.

For more information on the supply chain degree apprenticeship, or to find out how the Supply Chain Academy can benefit your business, please call 01708 259450 or email info@supplychainacademy.org.uk.