Digging Deep into the Heart of JCB: Scot JCB Parts Advisors & Apprentices visit HQ

Last month Angus Erskine, Training & Technical Specialist accompanied a team of Scot JCB Group Apprentices and Parts Advisors down to the JCB factory where they toured the factories, visited World Parts Centred and learned more about communication and the emerging technologies at JCB.

The first day started at the world famous JCB VIP Centre where our team of Apprentices and new Parts Advisors took in the Story of JCB Tour. The tour started with a short presentation in the JCB Theatre then the team were taken round the museum where the JCB story is presented from the very start to present day.

Next up our Team made their way to the assembly line of the famous JCB Backhoe Loader where they learned about how JCB backhoes are built, from the delivery of the sheet steel and welding through to the paint shop and final assembly. They rounded off the morning in at the loadall factory where they learned more about how the loadall range is built.

“It was brilliant to see how the machines are made and to be given the chance to tour the factories, I also really enjoyed finding out more about the history of how JCB started said Aaron Hay, Scot Agri Apprentice from Fraserburgh.

After a busy morning, it was time for lunch, where the team enjoyed three courses in the visitors’ center, which of course, ended with the famous JCB crème brulee.

The afternoon kicked off with a tour of World Parts Centre, where the team got to see how thousands of parts are distributed every day, their timing couldn’t have been better as they even got to see our very own parts being picked and shipped. This was followed by a trip to the Uptime Centre where they learned more about LiveLink and JCB Aftersales. “It was amazing seeing the massive screen and all of the JCB’s across the world, it really made me realise just how many JCB’s there are in the world!” Lucy Macintosh, Parts Advisor, Muir of Ord depot.

The second day of the trip took place at JCB’s Global Learning Centre where the team were split into two. Our Apprentices headed off to learn about Communication with Customers, whereas our Parts Team attended an Overview of the Fundamentals of JCB Engines, Transmissions and Hydraulics and Emerging Technologies. “The communications course helps our teams learn about how to speak to customers and co-workers, communication is important no matter what your role is at Scot JCB and the fundamentals course is great to reinforce what our Apprentices are already learning; however, the emerging technologies course is usually what they are most excited about, looking to the future of Hydrogen, said our Training and Technical Specialist Angus Erskine. The teams then swapped around for day three giving everyone an opportunity to cover the same topics.

After the course our Training and Technical Specialist Angus Erskine took the Apprentices out bowling for some well-deserved down time. Angus said, “I think it’s important to get as many of our staff down to the factory as possible, it let’s them see where everything started, how the machines we are working with every day are built and the scale of the JCB operation.”

Reflecting on the trip Stuart MacLachlan, Apprentice Engineer from our Glasgow depot said, it’s been a great trip, it’s been good to get to speak to the other Apprentices too and find out what is happening at our different depots.