Internships with an Intent at Rhino Machines and ACE Foundation

Industry – Institution Internships need to be promoted and at the same time structured. Internships under a framework should be promoted in MSME’s where the need of both will get serviced, and also in large industries to get an exposure to the best practices. In this article Manish Kothari, Managing Director, Rhino Machines, emphasises on the involvement of industry in vocational OJT in creating a structured framework to get the best benefits and results.

The industry feedback for the past decade has been able to reach the educational institutions and internships are now becoming a part of the syllabus and part of the learning journey for students.

This is not restricted only to Engineering Colleges or other graduation programs, but has also percolated to the ITI’s (Vocational Training Institutions).

Internship for short term 7 days to 60 days has become a part of the education curriculum at engineering institutions. I have the privilege to be part of one of BVM Engineering College III (Industry Institution Interaction) cell, SSIP (Innovation Council), and have MOUs with several institutions in and around Vallabh Vidhyanagar on the same subject for past 4-5 years.

In all the discussions and meeting, we have been stressing on exposure to the students in the industry while they are studying.

At the same time I started interacting with the ITIs also, as we found the lack of industrial exposure in the technicians, and limited access to industrial faculty and latest machinery or techniques was hurting the efficiencies in production of the industries.

We have now signed MOUs with ITI for hosting students under the OJT (On the Job Training) provision in the curriculum and industry visits to the students with our 5 organizations – Rhino Machines (Capital Goods and Machines design and manufacturing), Meemansa (Women’s Ethnic Wear design and manufacturing), ACE Foundation (Swiss style Vocational Education School), Composite Solutions (Business Consulting and Technology firm), Mukund and Rohit Chartered Accountants (Advisory Services) thereby providing the possibilities of giving exposure to the existing COPA, Fashion Technology, Welding, Wireman, Fitter, GST, etc vocational courses.

However, take the other side of the equation. The institutions have changed, are ready to move out and participate in the improvement in outcome of the education system. What about the industries – what exactly do they do in internship?

We found that internship in industry was taken more as a burden and less as an asset. Our team having understood the meaning of ownership and learning by doing through our Empretec journey, put their heads together on how to make use of this unusual opportunity.

For the engineering / graduate students, they put together a plan to involve the students in documenting of procedures and using their inputs to prepare/upgrade our standards. In the month of May 2019 we had a huge number of students who came in for their mandatory 6 day internship, we divided them into groups, assigned them to our staff. With a staff of about 30 we were able to manage grouping of 30 students. Thus we were able to not only give exposure in the core technical space of manufacturing, but also how does GST, taxation, inventory, sales, purchase and other commercial functions work in the industry. This has been possible as all the staff were getting something in return, they were getting assisted in building or upgrading their own systems. The need of both was fulfilled.

In the case of ITI students, we started with OJT with ITI Anand for their welding course, giving exposure to the students in ACE Foundation with their instructors. This is building of confidence in the relationship between an Industrial run high quality multi skilled vocational school, and the conventional trade training. While the students will benefit of learning from experienced professionals and instructors, ACEF is able to understand the need and articulate its training to the industry and institute needs. As the relationship progresses, there will be a possibility of manufacturing collaboration with the ITI at their premises, the possibility of sharing faculty and resources for training, ultimately benefitting the industry.

Rhino Machines and ACE Foundation welcome such continuous ongoing internship relationships, and will also invite other industries to take a step ahead and bring about wholesome and 360 degrees internship which align with our own industry needs.

Rhino-ACE have also set up a High Quality Multi Skill Vocational Education program where like minded industries have provided JOB ASSURANCE and SCHOLARSHIP support to the students at the time of joining. More details can be sought for the next batch commencing in July from our team.