Engineering Technician Review

My day to day activities include working with maintenance technicians within the Paint department in order to keep machinery running at an optimal performance. whilst working with maintenance technicians i am able to learn the skills and information required in order to performance maintenance activities and fault find during breakdowns

I have managed to learn a lot of new skills during my time in the apprenticeship in regards to different types of machinery that i have maintained. this has allowed for me to further improve my knowledge on many different types of equipment throughout the apprenticeship with there always being further knowledge to gain.

The program has been mostly enjoyable with many positives when looking back at what has been achieved. managing of time between different entities within the company that are expecting different work from you makes the apprenticeship hard, however this challenging environment allows for a better development of character going forward.

The footprint of the structured programme is initially good, however due to the ever changing scenarios that are faced in the multitude of environments that apprentices are placed in means that structure is very hard to keep. with the amount of work that is expected of apprentices throughout the apprenticeship having structure is key in order to allow deadlines for all work to be met.

Support is readily available if asked for to managers. the initial support that is given could be improved in order to make the experience more enjoyable to begin with as it can seem somewhat overwhelming upon the start of the apprenticeship. going forward i think it would be more beneficial to highlight who to go to for what support

By far the most disappointing part of the apprenticeship is the support received from the training provider. any issues that i have had I have felt the need to raise them with my employer (BMW) instead of the training provider in order to get the support that I required for an issue.

There is very little that i have learnt from my training provider that i can apply to my everyday work activities. the potential has always been there for the learning that we received to be beneficial, however in order for this to be the case communication between training provider and apprentices would be required and this has NEVER NEVER NEVER happened.

There are extra-curricular activates that can be taken part of at work. however due to the the hard workload along with the added pressures from every changing environments there is no time to take part in any of these. During the 3rd year there are several things going on that are all expected to be completed in your own time meaning that free time is taken up by work.

Yes

Looking back over the years i have learnt a number of new skills. these new skills and experience have allowed for me to take the name of the company and experience to other companies that i may what to work at. working for BMW Group allows for good pay and benefits

Be sure that you are flexible with your free time before joining as it will be effected by the activities that you have to undertake during the apprenticeship. make sure that you have taken part in some kind of everyday life maintenance activity to get a taste for what the job could entail.