Innovative Training Concept from Bosch - Training Center Opens in Hatvan

Hatvan – Only a year after the foundation stone was laid, the 170 million-forint Training Center at the Hatvan site of Robert Bosch Elektronika Kft. has opened its doors at a ceremony today. The development has provided a training center which currently has eight classrooms and a capacity of nearly 200 associates. Attending the ceremony were Péter Szíjjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Javier González Pareja, representative of the Bosch Group in Hungary, and representing the plant, Volker Schilling and Roger Seemeyer, General Managers of Robert Bosch Elektronika Kft. The Training Center will be a strategic base for secondary and higher-education dual training. It will also provide training for the group’s technical and business staff.

“The Hatvan plant has grown into the Bosch Group’s largest automotive electronics plant and is the largest employer and most significant employer in the region. Planned growth in the automotive industry is essential for attaining the foreign trade objectives set by the Hungarian government. I am very pleased that the rapid growth of the Hatvan plant will mean that another 300 new employees will join its workforce this year,” said Péter Szíjjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

„Bosch plans for the long term and Hungary is a key strategic base for its global innovation and research-and-development objectives. We do our best to be an attractive and a reliable employer and also a predictable market player. The most effective support the government could provide for the group’s innovation activity and for its commitment to generating employment would be an economic background which is stable and predictable in the long term.“ – said Javier González Pareja, representative of the Bosch Group in Hungary in his welcome speech.

The general classrooms feature inspiring design and a high standard of equipment, and there are also special classrooms. Some are specialised for IT and Bosch Production System training, but perhaps the most interesting is the simulation room, where new production staff learn to operate production machinery and acquire basic production knowledge. Professional and management development has a key place in the Training Center syllabus. Its portfolio also includes a large number of language courses, to be attended by more than 300 staff each year. “Technical, business, social, methodological, management and entrepreneurial competences are key factors which are indispensable in the operation of a multinational company. The Training Center will provide opportunities for professional development to 5000 members of staff each year, and this will be a major support for our innovation objectives,” said Roger Seemeyer, Technical Plant Manager of Robert Bosch Elektronika Kft.

Innovative teaching
Bosch has been providing dual training in Hatvan throughout the fifteen years the plant has been running. Secondary-level dual training is an important part of the Training Center which opened today. With a view to future recruitment, Bosch assists in the practical training of students who are currently at school and is constantly working to develop this activity. The four trainers who are dealing with the dual training all have outstanding professional qualifications and many years of experience.

The facilities awaiting TGA students cover more than 1000 square metres (classrooms, workshops, display walls, simulation cells). Secondary-level dual training involves a total of 48 students in two – mechatronic and electronic technician – classes set up in collaboration with the Damjanich János Vocational School and Dorm in Hatvan and the Petőfi Sándor Secondary and Mechanical Trades School and Dorm in Aszód. In the next academic year, five first-year students at Budapest Business School and eight students from the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Szent István University will start higher dual education with the support of the Hatvan plant.

“We are convinced that a flexible training system which is offering state-of-the –art curricula to all levels of the plant is essential for our future growth. In recent years, we have spent more than ten million forints on the purchase of equipment to support practical training. The Training Center being opened today will implement knowledge transfer that allows constant development of our training concept. If we do our work properly, it will significantly contribute to our position and ambition as a high-tech producer for complex automotive electronics solutions in the industry of automotive electronics,” said Volker Schilling, commercial plant manager of the Bosch plant in Hatvan.