• 99 trainees and students start at Heidelberg on September 1
• Virtually all graduating trainees offered employment
• Refugee from Iran starts training as electronics engineer

Collectively agreed foundation year starts again in March 2019?
The training year at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) starts on September 1, 2018. Another 99 young men and women are starting their training or dual study courses at one of four of the company’s sites in Germany. “Heidelberg goes digital” is a key focal point for almost all ten of the career paths starting off this year, putting the digital transformation at the heart of the industry leader’s training portfolio, too.

Accordingly, Heidelberg is again training IT specialists in application development. The dual study courses will also focus on “(business) IT”, “digital media” and “international business”, since the internal networking of systems and working worlds, international cooperation, and the development of digital business models are gaining in importance due to digitalization at Heidelberg. Furthermore, the company is training mechatronics engineers specifically in how to work with the virtual collaboration and communication platform View2Connect, which supports fully digital assembly planning, among other things. Virtual reality is a key element in this technical training. For example, trainees in the “digital platforms” segment will use View2Connect on a project that centers on manufacturing and jointly developing 3D printing systems for Karlsruhe-based start-up Apium.

To account for the company’s demographics, almost all graduating trainees are being offered employment.
The company’s biggest training site, which currently has 244 trainees and students, including 71 from this year’s new intake, is Wiesloch-Walldorf. After completing last year’s collectively agreed foundation year, another refugee has been given a place in the new training year. He is a young man from Iran and is starting his training to become an electronics engineer. Heidelberg currently employs a total of around 300 trainees and students at its Wiesloch-Walldorf, Brandenburg, Amstetten, and Ludwigsburg sites.

Collectively agreed foundation year starts from March 2019 at the latest
Starting from March 2019 at the latest, Heidelberg will once again be giving young people, including up to five refugees, a total of twelve places for a collectively agreed foundation year. The collectively agreed foundation year developed by the metal and electrical industry in Baden-Württemberg aims to help young people who lack the necessary qualifications improve their education and employment prospects.

“The digital revolution came into our training long ago. Having an in-depth understanding of overarching process chains and procedures is becoming increasingly important if you want to be successful in a whole range of areas. That is why we are working with vocational schools and dual-study colleges, technical colleges and universities to give our trainees a detailed understanding of digital processes,” explains Professor Rupert Felder, Head of HR at Heidelberg.

Virtual reality is a key element in technical training at Heidelberg: Nikolai Moessner, a trainee mechatronics engineer at the company, introduces Baden-Württemberg Minister President Winfried Kretschmann and Minister of Digitalization Thomas Strobl to the virtual world of printing presses at the “Festival of Digital Training”, which took place in July in Heidelberg.