In recent years, Mecalux Software Solutions, within the Mecalux Group has stepped up its cooperation with universities to provide career opportunities for newly qualified young people and facilitate students in developing research projects within the confines of the company R&D&i.
Recently, Mecalux opened up in the universities of Leon and Cantabria, by giving informative and academic sessions on technological innovation. The purpose of this joint effort is to facilitate the recruitment of new graduates according to the actual needs of the company.
Meanwhile, participation in the University of Oviedo is long standing, both on the Oviedo campus, in the School of Engineering, and in Gijon, at the Polytechnic School of Engineering (EPI).
In the past two years, about twenty universities have conducted practicums at Mecalux, where the R&D team has tutored final degree and master's projects (mainly the Masters in 'Computer Engineering' and 'Automation Engineering in Industrial Computing' of the EPI and 'Web Engineering' at the School of Oviedo). Most of these students have joined the company's workforce once they have completed the internship.
Currently, there are –or soon to be– fifteen R&D&i projects about information technology and automation, which aim to develop innovative solutions for logistics software. For example, the use of holographic glasses to interact with the warehouse layout, creating a voice recognition user interface, different bot based services (software that mimics human behaviour), user requests and mobile applications with IFTTT (If That Then That) configuration rules, among others.
In addition to computer engineering, other disciplines are also involved with Mecalux Software Solutions. Most of the team is composed of computer engineers, followed by telecommunications technicians and industrial engineers, plus a percentage of other degrees such as physics or mathematics. The company is undergoing expansion and, therefore, has substantially increased its workforce, quadrupling it over the past eight years.
Mecalux also maintains contact with vocational training centres in Gijon, to enable students in Advanced Vocational Training Courses to do internships in the customer support department. Soon, talks on this issue will take place in several of these centres.
Within its career and training efforts, Mecalux actively participates in forums related to the employment of young graduates in Asturias. For example, in the EPI Society Partner's Day, an event that includes 80 of the most prominent companies from Asturias; or the Employment Forum, organised by the University of Oviedo, which helps students and recent graduates to find their first job in enterprises and institutions interested in attracting and selecting highly-qualified professionals.