Engineering Jobs

Level 6 Tool Process Design Engineer Apprenticeship

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May 16th 2023 by Ben Wilson

Do you have what it takes to solve problems and design solutions within the Engineering and manufacturing industry. Do you thrive on a challenge? If so, this job may be the one for you. Read on to find out how the Level 6 Tool Process Design Engineer Apprenticeship could help start your career.

What is a tool process design engineer?

The tool process design engineer is typically found across Industry within companies designing and engineering components for companies such as automotive and aerospace. It involves strategic tool design for volume production working to client brief and budget. Creating new solutions using the latest technology to solve problems.

Opportunity to work with several internal and external colleagues/clients, for example:

  • Designers
  • Engineers
  • Manufacturers 
  • Project Managers
  • Factory Floor

Attributes and Entry Criteria for the Level 6 Tool Process Design Engineer Apprenticeship

As an Tool Process Design Engineer you are expected to think outside the box to solve problems. Be a self-motivated and determined individual who is eager to perform in the industry. The key behaviors in this role include:

  • Strong work ethic with positive attitude.
  • Team player, work effectively within a team of designer to solve problems.
  • Self analytical – overcome problems to continually learn and evolve.
  • Problem solving, identify issues quickly and apply solutions.
  • Good planning skills to meet design, technical and budgetary requirements.

Typically a Level 6 apprenticeship requires you to have 3 A levels or have previously completed an apprenticeship at level 4 or 5.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you are a driven, love a challenge, enjoy technical and engineering problem solving. Interested in a career in Design Engineering or as a Process Specialist. Then the level 6 Tool Process Engineering apprenticeship may be the right pathway for you. This apprenticeship opens so many doors to expand and excel in your career, the opportunities just keep on coming!

If this role doesn’t interest you, perhaps these might!

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Engineering Manufacturing Technician Career Paths

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Are you looking to become an engineering manufacturing technician apprentice or currently in a training programme? If you answered yes to either of these, then it’s great to plan ahead and start looking at possible careers for your next steps. In this blog, we go through our top 3 career paths for engineers after their apprenticeship.

Costing engineer

As it says in the job role title, this career is focussed of the cost of working. Before working on a job, the costing engineer prices up the job based on the work that needs doing, tools required, and an approximate time that it would take to complete this job. This role is highly important, so the engineers know what they’re working with. They keep track of the project and ensure that the tools and project remain within the budget and is cost effective for the task they are completing.

Costing engineering is a great role to go into. You have high stakes in how engineering products go ahead by collecting data, analytics, proposals, and specifications for the engineer’s work and create templates for how the work will be competed, analysing the job again at the end to make sure that the budget was well kept, and everything went according to plan.

The required skills to become a costing engineer are good communication, negotiation, and influencing skills in order to work with the client to get what they want and the price you require. You also need to have good analysis skills, project management, and be good financially, knowing what prices things so nothing is over or under charged. Finally, you also need to be able to interpret technical data and be able to translate that to the other workers in your team, alongside the client.

With all of these, you’re on the path to becoming a costing engineer.

Production support engineer

Within this role, you are responsible for a lot of the faults or troubleshooting errors that may occur before or during jobs. They respond to any requests sent in my clients to ensure everything on there is up to scratch and ready for the engineers to go in and work on the job at hand. Once these errors have been found, they talk to the engineers about the issue, so they know for the current job and the future, as well as recording them on the system so these any faults that occur, don’t occur again or as regularly in the future. With these problems found, they work to find solutions or improvements that could be used – planning, designing, and testing their ideas. Production support engineers play a huge role in engineering, always having a job to do.

In order to become a production support engineer, you need to ensure that you have the required skills in order to do the job effectively and safely. These are problem solving in order to always find the correct solution that will take place of the fault and work safely. You also need to ensure that your customer service skills are highly trained so you can communicate with clients, receive feedback, and do all this in a professional and polite manner. Finally, you need to have a trained eye with a lot of attention to detail and technical expertise, so any errors or faults are resolved in a high-quality and timely manner.

Highly skilled, organised, confident, and calm? Maybe the production support engineer role is for you.

Process engineer

The role of a process engineer is very important in the engineering world. As a process engineer, you transform raw materials into everyday product by designing, implementing, controlling, and optimising the manufacturing process. Whilst doing this, you also ensure that the role that you are doing is time efficient, in order to get tasks done and tested before the job. You also have to ensure that you are cost effective, so you are not over exceeding the budget required. On top of all of this, you also work to ensure that what you do produce coincides with the health and safety standards.

This job, much like all engineering jobs, have a certain set of skills that are required in order to work effectively. These include problem solving. When something goes wrong while designing or creating, you have to ensure that you can figure out what the problem is and how it can be resolved in a timely matter to ensure all materials are ready when necessary. This also requires critical thinking. You also need to ensure that you have a good attention to detail so your products are to the highest standard possible, matching or exceeding the company standard for better customer reviews.

With these, you could be a process engineer after your apprenticeship.

What is a Level 4 automation and controls engineering technician?

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If you have recently completed your Level 3 qualification, have you thought of becoming a Level 4 automation and controls engineering technician apprentice?

The Level 4 automation and controls engineering technician apprenticeship is a 24-month programme working towards the occupational standard with a minimum of 20% off-the-job training. All apprenticeships will spend a minimum of 12 months on the programme.

Do I qualify for Level 4?

As a gateway requirement and prior to taking the EPA (End Point Assessment), apprentices must complete all approved qualifications mandated in the Automation & Controls Engineering Technician standard.

These are level 4 technical engineering qualifications covering at least one of the following areas:

  • Electronic engineering
  • General engineering
  • Manufacturing engineering
  • Operations engineering
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How Am I Assessed?

How am I assessed?

The apprenticeship is assessed by:

Assessment method 1: Project, Report and Presentation with Questioning which is graded on a final, pass, or distinction level.

Assessment method 2: Occupational Professional Discussion which is also graded on a final, pass, or distinction level.

English and Maths

Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this level prior to taking the End-Point Assessment. For those with an education, health and care plan or a legacy statement, the apprenticeship’s English and maths minimum requirement is Entry Level 3. A British Sign Language (BSL) qualification is an alternative to the English qualification for those whose primary language is BSL.

Skills needed to become an automation and control engineering technician.

  • The ability to work safely in an industrial environment and where required, produce risk assessment/method statement documentation.
  • Be able to apply the principles of functional machinery and process safety including SIL (Safety Integrated Level) and PL (Performance Level) terminology
  • Production and interpretation of a range of technical documentation (device manuals, operating procedures, schematics, fault reports etc), and working with company documentation systems
  • Project engineering capabilities – Support of installation, commissioning, shut-down, start-up and maintenance/service/support of a wide range of systems and devices
  • Fault finding, diagnosis, rectification and reporting of automation control systems and controls applications via the utilisation of formal problem-solving methods and diagnostic tools/software
  • S5: Instrumentation configuration and calibration – Set up, calibrate and commission a wide variety of field-level instrumentation that interfaces to automation & control systems
  • configure, assist in commissioning and continued support of industrial network solutions at all hierarchical levels of control system integration using the requisite tools and or software
  • Make changes to existing systems or implement new configurations
  • Implement complex PLC/Robot program content and configurations to affect changes to increase availability and or efficiency of automation-controlled machinery and the ability to configure PLC and or Robot hardware and program a wide variety of PLCs and or Robot’s

What is expected of the apprentice?

For the Project and Presentation, the apprentice will be required to submit:

  • A portfolio, compiled throughout the apprenticeship and completed by the gateway. This must be sufficient enough to evidence that the apprentice can apply the knowledge, skills and behaviours required as mapped to assessment method 2.
  • There must be at least one piece of evidence relating to each knowledge, skill and behaviour mapped to AM2 although in most cases one piece of evidence will be referenced against more than one KSB requirement.
  •  It is expected that there will be a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 18 pieces of evidence to allow flexibility, but also encourage economical use of evidence for the number of KSBs to be covered.
  • The portfolio should contain written accounts of activities that have been completed and referenced against the knowledge, skills and behaviours, supported by appropriate evidence, including but not limited to photographic evidence and/or work products, reference guides, presentations, reports, schematics, specifications and work orders. Progress review documentation can also be included. The apprentice’s manager/mentor will typically support the development of the portfolio in accordance with organisational policy and procedures, although the EPAO will provide further guidance on the content.

Summary of the qualification including benefits

They are numerous benefits of a level 4 qualification including being recognised by a professional body such as the Institute of Engineering & Technology (IET)/Engineering or the Technician (EngTech) Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE)/Engineering Technician (EngTech)

A typical job title is an automation and controls, and engineering technician. According to Glassdoor, the average base pay salary is £41,998 a year.

If you are interested but have not completed a Level 3 qualification, you can find more information here or get in touch by contacting us via LinkedIn or Twitter.  Or for an overall view of apprenticeships visit our website.