Thailand's electroplating industry cannot find enough qualified employees. The "SCHOOLPLATE" research project therefore aims to establish vocational education and training in this emerging Southeast Asian country. A study has now summarized the initial results.
The Thai electroplating industry has a similar structure to the German one. The majority of companies are small or medium-sized and mainly supply customers from the automotive industry. The majority of companies assume that the number of employees will increase in the coming years. This was determined by a research team from the Electroplating Technology department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in an online survey and interviews with experts.
However, the survey also shows that the electroplating industry in the Southeast Asian country suffers from so-called "skill gaps": Of all things, the knowledge and skills that the companies surveyed rate as particularly important are weak among the workforce and potential new employees.
In order to alleviate the skills shortage, the research team, which also includes scientists from the Metallurgy and Materials Science Research Institute (MMRI) at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Bonn, has launched the project "Vocational education and training measures for electroplating in Thailand" (SCHOOLPLATE). The aim is to develop a sustainable concept for vocational education and training in Thailand.
This concept is based on the findings of the survey conducted by the research team in the first phase of the project. These research results have now been summarized in a study. It is available to download free of charge in English and Thai: https://www.ipa.fraunhofer.de/de/Publikationen/studien/SCHOOLPLATE.html
