Extractive Industry first for Mentor

Mentor has become the first training organisation to be successfully accredited by EMP Awarding Body Ltd to provide plant training in the Extractive and Mineral Processing Industry.

EMP, who are well known in the quarrying industry as the awarding body for NVQ and SVQ work-related competence-based qualifications took over the responsibility for the training programme accreditation from Epic Training & Consulting Services in May 2007.

Carol Pillinger, Director of EMP, was delighted to issue the first accreditation to Mentor – “Mentor have worked extremely hard to ensure that both the training programmes and assessment processes submitted reach the high standards required by this industry. The accreditation scheme helps to ensure that accredited training contributes to the proof of competency required by the Quarry Regulations 1999”.

Mentor became involved with the quarry industry following numerous requests from existing customers who had been impressed by the training services provided for operators of fork lifts, tele handlers, access platforms etc. Richard Shore, Managing Director of Mentor commented, “These same companies urged Mentor to develop equivalent quality training programmes, customer service support and professionalism for the larger items of plant used within the quarrying industry. We conducted extensive research into the requirements of the main operators in the industry and felt it was a good fit with our other areas of expertise which confirmed that we could provide the level of service that they required. A separate ‘Mentor Extractives’ division now exists within the company which is led by experienced industry professionals and the early results have been hugely encouraging”

The Mentor training courses for Wheeled Loaders, Excavators, Dumpers, Skid Steers and Tele Handler lift trucks are now being mapped to EMP-NVQ’s which means any individual taking the operator training course is automatically contributing to their NVQ at the same time.

Mentor, with bases in Chesterfield and Bromsgrove are the UK’s leading provider of nationwide operator training on workplace transport with over 150 training professionals providing 25,000 training days per annum.