Masterwood Opens UK Training School

In a major development, panel and joinery CNC machining centre specialist Masterwood (UK) Ltd has opened a state-of-the-art training school.

It has been built at the company's headquarters in Helensburgh, a short drive from Glasgow Airport with its convenient flights from numerous UK and Irish cities. The training school is set in relaxed rural surroundings to provide the ideal learning conditions away from the everyday work environment.

A class in progress at the new Masterwood training school at Helensburgh.

The two-story, timber-frame-built training school and its associated administrative offices represent an investment by the company of £200,000. It incorporates the latest hi-tech classroom facilities including a 48-inch plasma screen.

Training being provided ranges from two-day pre-commissioning courses to one- and two-day advanced courses on the company's growing number of tailor-made panel and joinery software packages.

Said Russell Corlett, Masterwood (UK) Ltd's managing director: "Our courses will cater for a maximum of nine trainees at any one time so that everyone attending will get the very best out of the training. They will each be provided with a flat screen PC enabling them to work at their own pace."

The fully networked system will allow the trainer to access and control each PC, providing personal tuition where it is necessary.

The advanced courses available cover Masterwood's standard Masterwork software plus its growing number of specialised bespoke packages designed to speed up panel and joinery processing. These include MasterStair, Cut String, Quotations, MasterDoorSet, MasterTraditionalDoor, MasterNest, Rastor to Vector and Cabinet work. Further courses will be added as additional software packages are introduced.

"We used to have to take our customers from Britain and Ireland to the Masterwood factory in Rimini, Italy, for their pre-commissioning courses," explained Russell Corlett.

"In today's busy world an increasing number of businesses can no longer spare their employees for four days, only two of which are spent in actual training. We decided that the best way to help them was to set up our own training school here in the UK, which also allows us to offer advanced software training courses.

Personal tuition in the new Masterwood training school.

"With the new facilities we will be able to train people every bit as well as they can in Italy, if not better. There's also the added benefit that the courses will be led by our own technicians, often the very ones who will be installing a customer's machine and providing the on-site training."

He added: "Masterwood's advanced CNC machining centres are by far the user-friendliest on the market. Despite this, providing the correct training is essential in order to help our growing number of customers in the UK and Ireland get the very best out of their investment in the shortest possible time."

For details of the courses available at the new training centre, call Masterwood (UK) Ltd on tel 01436 675 000, fax 01436 678999 or email masterwooduk@aol.com.