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This is indeed an interesting question, particularly for training in Africa. There are, of course, international industry committed to playing its part in feeding a options globally. There is the growing population is the fascinating places our quest for timely, very famous ‘Swiss Milling relevant and informative journalism takes us to. Last month, I had School’ and the prestigious ‘Kansas State University’ as the privilege of being the first western reporter to visit Bühler’s African well as leading manufacturers Milling School, located in Nairobi, Kenya to meet its students, offering training solutions like ‘Ocrim’ in Italy and industry teachers and Martin Schlauri – the brainchild of the school. Opened leading organisations like the in March 2015, I visited the school to see the first batch of 27 students ‘IAOM’ and of course the ‘DMSB’. undertake thier training - Darren Parris, Milling and Grain Outside of these elite establishments of learning there are a few regional solutions such as NABIM in the United hat is the miller?” this was the question posed to Kingdom, a school in Morocco, one in India and South Africa to name a very limited few. All of these well recognised institutions me by Martin Schlauri, Managing Director of the of learning play their global role in the training and development of our future millers. However, within a mill you will have, as African Milling School with any business structure, different levels of operation and in Nairobi, Kenya. As management. For the sake of simplicity I will break these down fast as the rhetorical into three key roles, as highlighted in figure 1. question had been asked, It is no secret that European Millers are respected globally, the answer followed. with the majority of leading European mills putting their senior “The miller operates the plant, making sure it is clean, has a good sound by making sure all the machines are aligned correctly production staff through courses such as those at the Swiss Milling School or with Ocrim or indeed Kansas State. Many of and of course there is a good quality of product with a good these courses focus on the higher level of management such as output”; in fact Martin went on further to explain that the miller Production Managers. is the supervisor of the plant 24/7. So, it is clear to all that a wellFor example, Kansas State University (KSU) will give you a trained miller is extremely important in the running of a mill, but, world class degree, though there is a difference, a graduate from where can people go to train as a miller?
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36 | Milling and Grain