Two Cleckheaton companies have scooped £28,000 in Engineering Professional Development Awards from The Royal Academy of Engineering.

The grants to BBA Friction and Cold Drawn Products are to support their training schemes for professional engineers.

A total of 21 awards were made nationally, worth nearly £200,000.

The Academy is now inviting more applications for Awards to cover 1998/9 training needs - the closing date being October 16, 1998. Details from Ian Bowbrick on (0171) 2270504.

BBA Friction has received £15,000 towards a special programme to develop the senior management potential of ten of its engineers.

They will undergo a series of courses and project secondments to identify how they can best contribute to the company's business, manufacturing brake pads and blocks for cars and commercial vehicles.

The company also won an additional £1,000 Innovative Training Award for using state-of-the-art techniques such as psychometric testing to determine the staff's training needs.

Cold Drawn Products has won £12,000 towards a training scheme to equip 11 of its senior engineering managers and supervisors with the skills to manage a major new corporate investment.

They are now constructing a plant to bring in new business manufacturing armour sections for undersea oil pipelines, increasing production by up to 40 per cent.

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