Higher standards

The course has been well received by students and employers alike and has been attracting an increasing number of applications for places each year. At the direct request of its members, the ECA in partnership with SELECT now offers this course on day release and distance learning bases.

The course is a recognised qualification delivered on a scheme where credits are gained by successful completion of coursework in eight subjects. Stage one lays the essential foundation and develops the specific and functional areas of contracting management. Stage two continues the theme, allowing participants to build on the earlier principles, which can be applied within the context of the industry.

A work-based project gives participants the chance to undertake work of their choice within the context of the overall teaching programme and industry.

Progression routes have been established into the Diploma in Management at Lauder College, Fife. This requires a further one year of study, and then students have the choice of progressing into the final year of the MBA programme or MSc in facilities management at Napier University, Edinburgh. All programmes are available by day release or distance learning.

Students on both streams must attend a weekend residential period each year.

The aim of the weekend is to develop team-building skills and to explore aspects of contracting management, including presentation and meeting skills, communication, problem-solving, economics and negotiating. These are not all delivered in a formal classroom situation; the participants are formed into teams and given tasks to carry out.

At this year's weekend for distance learning students one exercise involved the setting up of a production unit to produce paper hats. The objective was to produce the required amount of three types of paper hats to a predetermined order over a production cycle of one week.

However, in real time one day lasted for only two minutes. At the end of each two-minute day the team should have produced the required quantity of hats. These had to be delivered to the client, who checked them for correctness of order and quality.

The teams were given a half-hour planning and preparation time before the exercise began to plan their production process, decide who undertook which function and learn how to produce the three styles of hat. They also had to work out when to order the required resources of paper, which colour, what quantity and for when. The team making the most profit was the winner.

The production time was 30 minutes real time and was a whirlwind of frenetic activity. During the production the tutor would suddenly declare that one member of a team was out of the process for a day sick. This meant teams had to reorganise and pick up skills previously done by the absent member.

All participants agreed that the exercise had brought to life the production planning process, the theory on team- working and the real life problems of things not going to the original plans and having to produce solutions in a pressurised timescale.

The weekend did of course have its social side, and it is possible the odd beer or two was consumed!