Control Technician Apprentice Review

My day-to-day role depends on which placement I am on as we move placement area every few months. Most commonly I am in a placement in maintenance where I will work with a shift to attend break downs, I will assist on more complex breakdowns and will be allowed to work on more routine breakdowns independently. One day a week, I attend college and will be given work to complete.

At the start of this apprenticeship I learned lots of different hand skills, fault finding techniques, how to use a milling machine and lathe at college. Since being on-site I have applied many of the practical skills I learned and my ability to fault find for both electrical and mechanical breakdowns in a variety of machines has greatly increased. I have also gained a better understanding of how the machines on-site function and particularly how the AAB robots work are maintained.

I have enjoyed rotating around the different areas of the business, as this has given me a good general overview of BMW and how all the different parts of the plant work together, but feel mainly being based in maintenance has allowed me to learn the skills I will need for a job. Working towards my degree at the same time has been hard work but it is worth the work and there is plenty of support when requested.

When at work, we follow a placement plan which is produced by one of our placement managers. This plan informs you in advance of where you will be going for, how long and what shift you will be working on. This plan ensures that we get time to learn what we need to so we can work a job after the apprenticeship, but also allows us to see other areas of the business. We have college on the same day every week and it is clear what work is expected from us.

We have an apprentice manager, who we can go to about any problems and we meet with him ever other week. We have three placement managers who work within the engineering site of Hams Hall and we can go to them for any help with placements or with any questions we may have. In each placement we also have a mentor who we can ask any questions about how the placement area functions too. So there are many people that you can get support from for a range of different matters.

At college we can go to our teachers if we are having a problem and if they are unable to help or we want to speak to someone else, we can talk to the head of engineering, who listens to any concerns we may have and helps to find a solution, such as extra support or more time.

The qualification I am completing is a degree in engineering which focuses on electrical. As I spend most of my time working within maintenance, the electrical knowledge means I have a better understanding when electrical breakdowns occur, so I am better at fault-finding and knowing how to fix it. The maths we do in the course does help me understand concepts better, but is not directly used in my day-to-day job.

There are not any extra curricular activities arranged by the company, but many do occur that are arranged by groups of employees, but these are often for set areas or groups of people. There are some activities that you can sign up for such as golf. It would be nice if the company did arrange more activities, however we all live over a wide area, so getting everyone in one place is hard.

Yes

I would recommend doing an apprenticeship at BMW group as I have learned a lot of skills while in my placements which I would not have been able to learn in the academic environment and have enjoyed working with the people in these placements as they have gone out of their way to teach me and ensure I feel involved. I am getting my degree all paid for so I will not have any debt and I am being paid as well.

When filling out the online applications, make sure you are clear and concise, so do not put unnecessary information in or make your answer too long, but do ensure you sell yourself by including different activities you have done, that show why you would be the best for the job. If you attend an assessment centre, dress smartly and make sure you are friendly and approachable.