The apprenticeship and training schemes I was talking about were ones they would have in Struer, Czech and other places in Europe to train factory workers to assemble the products.
I can't speak of what happens in Struer, or their Czech facility for that matter, but I can speak about light engineering firms in the UK and other European countries that I am familiar with, Czech included. A traditional UK engineering apprenticeship would consist of at least one years "off the job" training, learning basic hand and machine tool skills. The remaining 3 or four years would be on the job under the tutelage of a time served craftsman perfecting your trade before being allowed to practise "solo". During the whole of this period the apprentice would also be required to attend technical college to gain the required academic knowledge. This is my definition of an apprenticeship. In my time in light engineering/manufacturing, none of the assembly lines I have seen have been manned by time-served craftsmen. More likely they are operated by what would be called semi-skilled labour which can amount to having basic training in the likes of safely using simple hand and air powered tools and instruction on the actual job at hand. Training before joining a new assembly line may be as short as 2 - 4 weeks - these are not apprentice trained craftsmen. This then is not infeasible in a Chinese plant.
If B&O have exclusively only ever used genuine apprentice-served craftsmen for product assembly then I am very impressed.
