Acting on skills shortage

SOUTHPORT Engineering is now building more than just rail windows and aluminium products for buses and trains.
It’s building careers for Greater Dandenong’s young people and taking action to head off an impending skills shortage.
The Dandenong South manufacturer has identified the shortage as a threat and has introduced a training and apprenticeship program to bolster its number of apprentices.
Southport Engineering managing director Peter Smith said the company visited local schools to educate students on manufacturing, specifically at Southport, and to encourage them to try their hand at the industry during work experience.
He said Southport also oversaw Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) students from local secondary colleges for one day each week to help them with the practical elements of their year 11 and 12 studies.
Mr Smith, who began the business in 1982, said Southport was committed to helping young people find jobs in manufacturing because the industry had changed dramatically and was in dire need of skilled, hard working people.
“We realised it was getting harder to get apprentices and skills,” Mr Smith said.
“And we could see there was a lack of tech schools which had made it a lot more difficult to find apprentices, because young people didn’t know what manufacturing was all about.
“They only know what their parents tend to tell them and that is about the dirty, black industry from the old days.
“But in our place, everything is but that.”
As a result of its recruitment work, Southport finds that young people who do work experience on its shop floor tend to seek employment with the company when they leave school.
“Quite often (young people) come out of work experience wanting to do a machining apprenticeship and turn around and say that welding is for them instead.
“More than 50 per cent of young people change their first choice but they still come to work for us.”
Mr Smith said Southport Engineering had purchased technologically advanced machines to design and create their products, making the shop floor a more technical place than it had ever been.
He said that meant cleaner, safer jobs, and a quicker turnaround of products that gave Southport a competitive advantage against the cheaper but more time consuming services and products from Asia.
Southport has provided parts for the VLocity fast trains, securing a contract for $22 million in partnership with fellow Greater Dandenong manufacturer, ARM Group.
It also created a shell for the passenger information system installed at Southern Cross Station.