IT’S not often that bosses in manufacturing find themselves being honoured in the company of luminaries like the actor Idris Elba.

But Tim Brown, managing director of Dorset company Superior, found himself among the nation’s great and good as he collected an MBE from the Duke of Cambridge earlier this year.

He was being honoured for business and charity work and for his commitment to training young people – or, as his company puts it, “growing our own timber”.

Superior was founded by Mr Brown’s father Terence in 1972, but it was in 2009 that it set up its own training academy, in a dedicated, glassy building at its site on Ferndown Industrial Estate.

Tim Brown’s enthusiasm for apprenticeships grew out of travel in Europe. He realised that “perhaps we were waiting for someone to drive up the road – rather than the European approach, which was to nurture people from school, get them into the system and give them a career”.

Superior now has 18 apprentices among 191 staff and is committed to hiring at least six a year.

It offers three different academy programmes – a traineeship for those with GCSEs, an apprenticeship for those with A-levels and a graduate programme. After their first year, apprentices can focus on their strengths and match them to the skills the company most needs.

Superior’s core business is manufacturing elastomeric seals and O-rings, which could crop up in anything from a gas boiler to an articulated lorry.

“Last month, we produced over 120million individual components,” said Mr Brown.

“It’s a high volume business.

“Our seals go into very critical applications for our customers.”

Development and manufacturing is done on site, to ensure complete control. Graduates' degrees are usually in material science, chemistry and polymer science.

“Our seals have to work. There’s no latitude. We have to produce a material which will meet the customer requirements, then we have to develop it to a very high quality level so it will last as long as the product,” Mr Brown said.

“We have to produce a product as accurate and reliable as the world market demands.”

Apprenticeships are a “fundamental part of our growth”.

“We plan to develop and expand. We recognise that’s entirely dependent on our ability to develop and train people," he said.

The academy is headed by Katie Bodman, who said many staff had worked a long time at the firm. “It’s important that those skills are transferred to the younger generation,” she said.

Women make up a higher percentage of apprenticeships than might be expected given the national shortage of girls in science and technology. “We already have our most technical department headed by a woman,” she said , referring to technical services manager Audrey Brodie.

“In her team, it is 50-50," she added.

Tim Brown says he had no idea that his enthusiasm for apprenticeship – combined with support for charities such as Julia’s House and the Piam Brown Ward at Southampton Hospital – would earn him an honour.

When the official envelope arrived, he said, “I thought it was possibly an invitation to be on a committee or something.”

He added: “When I opened it, it was quite overwhelming.”

The company marked National Apprenticeships Week by inviting other businesses to its academy.

“I suspect people are being too optimistic about future skills. I’m really concerned that people might be thinking that something will always turn up. I’m not sure it will,” he said.

“A lot of people talk about what schools should be doing and what government should be doing but the responsibility for the training has to be the companies taking their own decisions and planning.

"Our experience, I hope, is an example of what can happen.”