Page 12 - issue 21

12 Feauture : VDMA

Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany His Excellency Frank-Walter Steinmeier(L) and The First Lady Elke
Budenbender together with Minister of Labour and skills Development ,Mr Tshenolo Mabeo (R) at CITF .

DMA is a German Mechanical with Ministry of Employment Labor
Engineering Industry Association Productivity and Skills Development
Vcomprising of more than 3200 (MELSD) to support dual vocational
mechanical industry companies. It is the training. A contract has also been signed
strongest European industry association to run specific courses and trades in the
with its Headquarters in Frankfurt, current project such as Basic Hydraulics,
Germany, having about 500 employees. Programmable Logic Control PLC) and
It represents the German Mechanical Trade of mechatronics.
Industry that employs about 1.1 million
people worldwide. The Ministry and VDMA are both funding
this project, whereas VDMA is funded
The German Mechanical Engineering by the German Ministry of Economic
Industry is exporting nearly 80% Cooperation and Development (BMZ),
globally and is well known for its through its agency called Sequa. VDMA
quality, longevity and service. Besides has involved International Training Ms. Merapelo Neo Maruatona
that, VDMA is comprised mostly of and Support GmbH (ITS) as a training VDMA Country Project Officer
family owned SMEs, which play a very partner. ITS is a well experienced & Training Coordinator
important role (at a rate of about 7%) German company providing vocational
towards the dual system technical and schools trainings. They have more Finally, the prospective Batswana skilled
vocational education and training. The than 20 years’ experience supporting workers were trained on site using the
system also gives practical skills which training in Botswana. training models that they assembled
accelerate productivity and ability of together with HAWE Hydraulik experts.
being successful along the whole value- HAWE Hydraulik, a hydraulics company BOSCH REXROTH Is another member
added chain. based in Germany and a member of company of the VDMA which provided
the VDMA, sent six apprentices and PLC training equipment in the form of
German Mechanical Engineering two training supervisors in 2018. power supply equipment and simulators. A
Industry is active in all areas of They built three training models to Siemens (also a VDMA member) program is
Engineering. German quality is well be used for training practical basic being used to run the PLC.
known in Africa, even though the hydraulics and were also responsible for
export rate to African countries is implementation, project management VDMA`s core objectives include realisation
still too low.Locally VDMA has signed and commissioning on site. of its key initiative that is; to support
a Memorandum of Understanding

Issue 21 Apr/May - 2019 www.engineermagazine.co.bw