ManufacturingTV

Part of our interview with Stephen Phipson CBE with Make UK's reaction to the #Budget. Long term confidence, perhaps, but short term pain for a lot of #SME #ukmfg companies who are already under pressure and will find hiring and investment going forward more difficult thanks to the extra NIC burden.

The government has published its Green Paper on #IndustrialStrategy to coincide with the global Business Investment Summit in London on Monday. The Green Paper - dubbed Invest 2035 - marks the start of a consultation process across a wide range of business sectors - not just manufacturing - that will lead ultimately to a White Paper and spending commitments next Spring. But before that, the Chancellor will unveil her Budget at the end of this month, and Faye Skelton, Head of Policy at Make UK, warned that any budget measures that damage business confidence could hobble the industrial strategy before it has even been finalised.  The industrial strategy green paper is here: https://lnkd.in/ecqGkt7i And Make UK's report is here: https://lnkd.in/eMD9_q9g

Will Bridgman of Warren Services and his colleague Jed McConochie at the launch of a brilliant new series of events for students, teachers and parents called Future of Work, organised by Will Stirling of Stirling Media Ltd, on behalf of the The ERA Foundation, The Design & Technology Association, Made Here Now and Make UK.  Will and Jed were part of a raft of great speakers from companies in Norfolk/Suffolk that included British Sugar, Lotus Cars Europe, Swift Aircraft, Sizewell C together with many inspiring leaders from the manufacturing, engineering and logistics sectors in the region. The audience of over 250 were uniformly impressed, amazed and enthused by what they saw and heard. ManufacturingTV was at West Suffolk College, part of the Eastern Education Group, to capture the presentations so they can be shared with a wider audience down the line.  The Suffolk event was part of four happening in 2024. Watch out for similar events in the coming weeks at WMG, University of Warwick, The JCB Academy and Renishaw. BTW, the take up has been phenomenal - there's a real appetite for this work out there! - but if you know of any schools that might be interested in the Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire events, it's always worth seeing if there's still room. And even if there isn't, you'll be putting down a clear expression of interest for more events like this in 2025.  Contact details and more info at the Future of Work website: https://lnkd.in/ebtMNSM2 #Manufacturing #Engineering #Skills #Apprenticeships #STEM #UKmfg #Education #FutureofWork

The goal of any #industrialstrategy that emerges from the new government should be to encourage dynamic, digital technology-driven manufacturing activity at the local level: to deliver skilled, high-paying jobs in areas that lost skills and jobs in the de-industrialisation of the last few decades. In the latest edition of #TheProductionLine, we learn about CBE+, a Chesterfield company that has done just that. Henri Murison, chief executive of the The Northern Powerhouse Partnership says investment in #manufacturing and #skills holds the key to delivering new prosperity to the North (and the rest of the UK) given the chance.

It's widely lamented that #offshoring to cheap suppliers in Asia in recent decades drained a dangerous amount of capacity out of the UK manufacturing sector. But there's an equally valid case to be made that this is an exaggeration. That there's actually a great deal of capacity in the UK supply chain that's being overlooked by #OEMs and prime customers who simply don't know it's there. In the latest edition of #TheProductionLine, we hear from Marie Cooper, CEO of CBE+ in Chesterfield. Marie and her business partner brought together 6 manufacturing businesses, invested heavily in new technology, equipment and skills and created an engineering powerhouse that has re-energised the area. They just need to make their presence felt.

The UK government is facing a decision that will have enormous consequences for the UK automotive sector: whether or not to copy the US and EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle (EV) imports.  If it decides not to, UK luxury carmakers, who enjoy significant sales in China, will avoid retaliatory tariffs, but it will also mean no one in the UK will be able to compete with Chinese prices for affordable cars and so any idea of a mass EV battery and car manufacturing sector is doomed. With Net Zero targets phasing out petrol and diesel cars by 2030, that will also be the end of mass car making in the UK. In the latest edition of #TheProductionLine, author Ed Conway touched on the potential consequences of this fateful decision, even to the extent that it could impact our national security. (Ed was talking to us about his book Material World, out in paperback and recently nominated for the The British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding.) 

If you combine the imperatives of #NetZero with global instability, and therefore increasingly uncertain supply chains that demand we become more self-reliant for our manufacturing materials, you get a growing industry based on #recycling and #reuse.  The move to recycle the millions of tonnes of scrap #steel in the UK, instead of exporting it, is already underway with #electricarc furnaces planned at #PortTalbot and elsewhere. Ed Conway, author of the #MATERIALWORLD, says this is a really exciting moment for #ukmanufacturing, even though one of the biggest transitions we will make - to #electricvehicles (#EVs) - initially involves making our carbon footprint bigger.

Is it possible that as consumers have lost sight of where and how the products they consume are manufactured, thanks to the offshoring of #ukmanufacturing over the last 30 years, they care less about the damage to the planet that making those products causes? In his book MATERIAL WORLD, which traces the history of 6 materials - salt, sand, iron, oil/gas, copper and lithium - and how they will affect our future, Ed Conway argues that we are doing enormous damage to the planet in the name of carefree consumerism. It was witnessing relatively tiny amounts of gold being extracted by blasting, grinding and processing whole mountains of rocks that brought this home to him, he says; also witnessing a copper mine in Chile where mining waste has started to consume the town that grew up around it.

One of the bestselling business books of the last year has been MATERIAL WORLD by Ed Conway, Economics and Data Editor at Sky News. It's a study of 6 materials that have gone to make our modern world - sand, salt, iron, oil/gas, copper and lithium - and argues that the way we manage them will shape our future. There are lessons too, about how a country that loses its technological edge in any of these key materials and their products can place itself in peril. (A lesson we in the UK might take on board in these uncertain times.) In the 19th century, Britain made the finest glass in the world - from sand, of course - but over the years allowed its manufacturing prowess to wither and Germany to take the technological lead. As Ed told us, that led to the great Glass Famine of 1914, a true matter of life and death. 

Ever been on a company awayday and wondered who gets to choose the activity? If you like golf, maybe soccer or a bit of shooting, probably not.  But not everyone's into that, which is why Kirsty Davies-Chinnock, who runs one of the best known specialist polishing companies in the UK #metals sector, Professional Polishing Services, decided in 2023 to develop Women With Metal, a very special awayday/conference for women in the sector. Kirsty was appearing on #TheProductionLine with Steph Snade and Jeremy Stockdale. Watch the full conversation on the ManufacturingTV website or listen via your favourite podcast platform. Book your conference tix at https://lnkd.in/ekDjDNiD