TGA initiative a big success for Bosch Vietnam

Bosch has initiated several training programmes in its bid to improve Vietnam’s highly- skilled workforce

As a hi-tech company, Bosch has always taken a proactive approach to train a skilled workforce. Three years ago, the company committed to investing $1 million to develop human resources to meet its rising demand and further expansion in Vietnam.

The Bosch Technical Industrial Apprenticeship (TGA) is one of the first partnerships under the dual-vocational training framework of the Delegation of German Industry and Commerce in Vietnam (GIC/AHK Vietnam). The project has received praise from both the Vietnamese and German governments by applying modern German standards in its curricula. Apprentices undergo 3.5 years of theoretical studies at the LILAMA2 Technical and Technology College and practical training with modern machinery and equipment at Bosch. Notably, the number of enrollees increased from 150 applicants in 2013 to 250 applicants in 2014, with a jump to over 600 applications received in 2015. This reflects the credibility of TGA programme and the rising interest of students in engineering and manufacturing sectors.

Riding on the success, Bosch inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with GIC/AHK Vietnam and the LILAMA2 Technical and Technology College last week to offer mechatronics as a new discipline to its vocational training curricula in Vietnam. Including the $150,000 spent for the establishment of the mechatronics field, the amount invested into vocational training in Vietnam is more than $1million since the programme began in 2013. The increase indicates Bosch’s commitment to supporting Vietnam’s educational development and promoting Vietnamese talents.

Vo Quang-Hue, managing director of Bosch Vietnam emphasised that, “In today’s context, mechatronics is an essential discipline that is applied to almost every technical product across a multitude of industries. Introducing this new field is an effort from Bosch to help Vietnam build a highly-skilled technical workforce.”

Besides investing in industrial apprenticeship programmes and following its $23 million expansion last year, Bosch plans to pump a further $22 million into a Gasoline Systems plant in the southern province of Dong Nai for continuously variable transmission (CVT) pushbelts. By the end of this year, Bosch will have completed an investment of $340 million over the past five years to increase capacity and meet the growing global demand for this technology, mainly from automakers in Japan, China, Mexico and Thailand.

According to Hue, Bosch business sectors in Vietnam are developing well and contributing to the firm’s growth, adding that “Vietnam remains a key growth market for Bosch, and we are committed to investing in our operations here.”

Bosch Vietnam is active in seven sectors including automotive aftermarket, automotive electronics, drive and control technology, packaging technology, power tools, security systems and thermotechnology. Besides, Bosch operates in Ho Chi Minh City a software and business solutions research and development (R&D) centre known as Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Vietnam as well as an automotive R&D centre for mobility solutions.

Bosch Vietnam achieved a strong growth rate of around 50 per cent for the fiscal year of 2015, amounting to $68 million in consolidated sales. Total net sales, including sales to non-consolidated companies and internal deliveries to affiliated companies, amounted to $293 million.