…reiterates commitment to capacity development in the manufacturing sector

By Etop Ekanem

Lagos—The Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) Ltd, a member of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company (CCHBC), and strategic bottling partner of The Coca-ColaCompany has celebrated the graduation of 132 engineers from the company’s Supply Chain Academy. 

This follows the successful completion of an intensive two-year training course aimed at providing aspiring engineers with vital skills to thrive in the larger supply chain industry. The ceremony was held at the NBC Ikeja Plant with executives from the Coca-Cola System as well as key government and community stakeholders in attendance. 

Inaugurated in 1996, the Supply Chain Academy was conceived by NBC as an investment in skills development targeted at providing a pool of resourceful and competent engineers with high-demand technical skills. The training is carried out by NBC across all its manufacturing plants to empower technical personnel within the company and is also open to young professionals nationwide who aspire to build a career in manufacturing. 

The initiative has since grown and has graduated over 1,000 students whilst offering them jobs within NBC. It has also facilitated the training of 5,401 personnel in both short and long term courses.

Speaking at the 26th graduation ceremony of the academy on Wednesday, Managing Director of NBC, Matthieu Seguin, said: “As a responsible business, we share in the commitment of the FederalGovernment’s goal to lift people out of poverty by creating employment opportunities. 

“We believe that this commitment to job creation is critical, particularly for our mostly youthful population. We understand that the government alone cannot fulfil this social mandate; this is why the Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd has been using this arm of our establishment to recruit, train, and retain young technical trainees from across Nigeria.”

Commending NBC for the initiative, the Lagos State Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Olusegun Dawodu, said: “I appreciate NBC’s efforts in investing in young people. This investment comes at a very good time when Nigerian youths are going through various challenges in the country, especially with unemployment. NBC is not only training but also employing them and this must be commended.”

Earlier in her remark,Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Folashade Adefisayo, lauded NBC’s efforts, saying: “For us, at the ministry, we are trying to ensure that we have many institutions that offer technical education, hence we are thrilled with NBC’s efforts. NBC is providing this opportunity for young people to not only gain technical skills for employability but also training them in soft skills which are important in this day and age.”

The Supply Chain Academy, formerly known as the Technical Training Centre (TTC), was initiated in 1996 and at that time, recruited secondary school leavers for a four-year program. The Institute has gone further to facilitate the training of Graduate Engineers, Management Trainees, Line Managers, Quality Assurance Managers, Production Managers, and Plant Managers. This year’s training comprised an additional curriculum of end-to-end supply chain capabilities such as procurement, logistics, quality, and planning.

Today’s graduands were recruited from a total of 10 polytechnics in 2021, just when the country was trying to recover from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. All 132 of them have been in the classroom between that time and now, with extensive paid on-the-job experience, working at NBC’s world-class facility in Ikeja Plant. The academy continues to show NBC as a future-focused company committed to driving growth in the manufacturing industry and personnel development.