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Our Managed Engineering Services (MES) function within Vodafone UK have recently launched our new Centre of Excellence, which has been created as a hub for our engineers. Which is supported by our trusted suppliers and partners: Arco, Traffi, 3M, Mascot, WWT, Women’s Engineering Society and the IET. Read about how the new development has come about and all the exciting changes that have happened over the past few months...
7th March 2024
Our new Centre of Excellence for MES
What is the new Centre of Excellence?
The Centre of Excellence has been created as a hub for our engineers, offering the following services:
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) try before you order station: Building upon our new ordering portal and recycling scheme, 3M ear-fit validation testing, our first women’s PPE /maternity PPE and modesty tunics.
- Technical Lab: Training courses for our apprentices and other engineers to upskill themselves.
- Meeting Room Space and Training Space for our Virtual Lab Sessions: A space dedicated for our Virtual lab who we’ve partnered on with WWT. This enables us to be ahead of the game with new demand requests, upskill our engineers to enable a flexible operating model and also help engineers progress through technical career pathways and apprenticeship schemes.
- Engineer Staging and Storage: An area dedicated to our engineers, where they can also then test equipment in the Tech lab prior to setting up on customer accounts.
- Out reach: The space offers a unique opportunity to showcase the day in the life of a MES engineer, create videos and literature which we can use via our Women’s Engineering Network to encourage more women into this sector. We plan to evolve the centre of excellence from engineering to also include customer insight workshops and innovation.
Why was it created?
We wanted to be able to bring to life what a day in the life of an engineer is for all our teams, as well as providing our engineers with the opportunity to upskill in their role in line with technical career pathways.
The Centre of Excellence aims to work with local charities such as Inspiring the Futures who we launched a volunteer push with earlier this year to host apprenticeship taster days and encourage STEM returners to join which aligns with our Vodafone returner programme, open and encouraging all genders.
Why was it created and who is running this?
The Operational Excellence team for MES led by myself, have worked hard to create this, transforming it from a tired office space with the help of our Property Team. We have then worked in partnership with our suppliers to bring this vision alive to demonstrate benefits for our customers, the business and most importantly our engineers.
What new changes have been installed since this was set up?
We’ve hosted launch events, webcasts, hot topics and business updates from here. We have already completed numerous apprentice training sessions in the Technical Lab and have more planned.
What are you most proud of in this project?
The feedback from our engineers and stakeholders has been the element I am most proud of. Hearing the impact that proper fitting PPE has on our engineers daily life is rewarding, seeing our apprentices flourish and gain knowledge from our most knowledgeable engineers and talk about the impact this is already having.
What does the future of this Centre of Excellence look like?
Transforming from an engineering hub to incorporate our next project Red First Retention, all about customer retention and work winning – so customer insight sessions and collaborative working to further drive operational excellence, and innovation in all aspects of our operational delivery.
Interested in a career in tech?
Check out our Technology page and explore our vacancies!
