Engineering students get a visit toHyster-Yale factory in Craigavon

SRC Lecturers Philip Rea and Graham Proctor from the Portadown Campus along with Engineering students and Hyster-Yale employees at their recent industrial visit.

The BTEC Level 3 Manufacturing Engineering and BTEC Level 3 Engineering Diploma students got to experience how a world class plant operates.

The students also got to see how their curriculum offering will help them to ultimately seek employment possibly with local companies such as Hyster-Yale.

Two students on these courses are currently employed at Hyster-Yale and acted as official tour guides throughout the visit.

SRC would like to thank Hyster-Yale employees Ian McIlveen, Paul O’Hanlon and Gary Gilmore for an enjoyable and educational visit.

Earlier this year, Hyster celebrated 35 years of manufacturing tough forklift trucks at its plant in Craigavon, Northern Ireland.

To commemorate this milestone, Hyster hosted an exclusive event celebrating advances at the plant and looking to the future, with the unveiling of the new “XT series”.

This year a commemorative tree was planted at the factory, close to the location of an oak tree which was on the site before the plant was built and has been respectfully preserved.

The forklift factory at Craigavon, is now the largest volume forklift plant remaining in the UK, first opened in April 1981. It was built at a cost of £25m with one objective: to manufacture a range of quality trucks that could compete in world markets.

Starting with 22,000 m2 of manufacturing space and 4,000 m2 of office space, the facility has been a success story, growing to over 41,300 m2 and now employing hundreds of people.