Exchange sustains a great ARBURG tradition
In November last year, COBA Plastics was the latest ARBURG customer to carry on the tradition of the UK-Germany apprentice exchange, established by ARBURG Ltd. in 2017, where apprentices from the company in Germany and apprentices at their UK customers visit one another to train, learn and experience a different business culture.
Anael Strahlendorff, 19 years old, from Lossburg, Germany came to COBA Plastics Group for four weeks from 6th October – 2nd November 2024. Anael’s visit was a “deep dive” into design and moulding automotive components in a busy tier two and three automotive supplier that covered multiple elements of the business. “Anael completed a rotation through three of our businesses, COBA Automotive, COBA Plastics Moulding, and COBA Precision Engineering, and experienced working with several different teams including production, engineering and maintenance,” says Bethan James, People Partner at COBA Plastics Group.
From 30th March to 26thApril 2025, COBA’s George Wale and Paul Desbrow will travel to ARBURG in Lossburg for their four-week placement. Following the training, Anael produced a report for the Apprentice School team in Germany, and Paul and George will complete a similar report following their visit. The depth of machine, drive technology and process knowledge that both sets of apprentices acquire helps them both professionally and culturally, and helps improve ARBURG’S customer service levels.
Bethan hopes that the exchange continues in the coming years. To date, more than 20 UK-based customers have participated in the last eight years. The apprentice exchange launched in 2017 after dialogue with the Apprentice School team in Lossburg and has previously involved UK customers including John Guest (now RWC), Rediweld, COBA Plastics and others. Managing Director Colin Tirel is a big fan of the scheme and wants more moulding companies to look at the benefits and take part. “The idea was formed when that I saw that Lossburg has a long history of apprentice training at a very high standard, while simultaneously I saw an increasing number of UK customers were hiring apprentices. It was clear this could be an excellent opportunity to arrange a “swap” between ARBURG customers here and apprentices in Germany, helping the training and development of all these young people – a win-win!”
The post-visit reviews show the value to participants. “Our reviews show that Lossburg apprentices who have completed the exchanges have all gained extremely useful insights and experiences in the 'real' word of work at our customers,” Colin adds. “And the UK apprentices have also gained a deep and unique level of experience in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and a much more detailed understanding of how these machines and their systems are built.”