WCPC Academy - Continuing Professional Development for the Printing Industry

The increasing demands of customers to improve quality and reduce costs coupled with the advances in technology are placing a burden on the print professional to expand there knowledge base. When professionals change jobs or take acquire new responsibilities there can be a need to enhance skills. This cannot be met with the rigid, inflexible approach of traditional print education courses. The WCPC Academy is a “pick and mix” strategy designed for the continuing development of print professionals. Delegates can take those courses for which the topics and assumed background knowledge are relevant for their current situation. The WCPC Academy has developed a “ski run” system where each course is assigned a colour to provide a natural progress through advancing difficulty in a particular topic area but also allows courses to be taken in a “pick and mix” manner based on any previous experience in the topic area. The analogous situation is that it is common practice when arriving on a new hill to ski the easier slopes to check the condition of snow, overall local geography etc. before advancing to the more demanding runs. If you feel confident in the topic you can enrol directly onto a red or black course. A certificate will be provided to each delegate on successful completion of each course. Delegates will be invited to join the WCPC Academy where a record of achievement will be held. The courses are based on materials that have been developed by WCPC through its research, delivery of formal courses at NVQ 3 – 5 and development of courses at NVQ 1 – 2. In most cases, the courses have received an external industry vetting for relevance and an internal vetting to insure the quality of the provision   Green : Technology Awareness Blue :  Understanding Principles Red :  Working Knowledge Black : Advanced Knowledge Powerpoint Slides ● ● ● ● Full written notes   ● ● ● Assessment by scenario   ● ● ● Assessment by exercise     ● ● Assessment by examination       ● Pre reading required       ● The courses currently being offered are shown below (further details on content are available where links are present).   Green Blue Red Black Subject Area Topic         Colour Colour and graphic reproduction ● ● ● ● Colour measurement   ● ● ●           Printing An overview of the print processes ●       Flexography   ● ● ● Screen   ● ● ● Gravure     ● ● Offset Lithography   ● ●   Printing for electronic manufacture     ●   Digital ● ●     Pad ● ●     The coating process ● ● ● ●           Production Quality ● ● ● ● Process optimization     ● ● Instrumentation     ● ● Environmental impact ●                 Materials An introduction inks ● ● ● ● Printable electronics materials     ● ● Paper and board ● ●     Polymer substrates ● ●     Rheology ● ● ● ●           Functional Printed electronics for the printer ●       Printing electroluminesence   ●

Enquiries can be sent to Glyn Davies at G.R.Davies@swansea.ac.uk