Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Brief, which is full of tinsel, mince pies and festive cheer.
Firstly this week a reminder to take a few minutes and fill in the MTA Membership Survey to be in with the chance of winning an IPAD! We would really like to hear from you. The MTA November Business Survey closes on Monday too, so put down the box of Quality Street and help us to understand what’s happening in the sector.
This week saw the announcement that the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing’s award-winning, advanced apprentice training centre had secured National College status. This means that the AMRC Training Centre will become a key part of the UK’s new National College for Advanced Manufacturing, which will be based at several hubs around the country and will aim to identify the needs of industry and develop training provision to meet those needs.
The MTA and Cranfield University have once again teamed up and are hosting a conference on the UK Surface Engineering Industry – Present and Future. This free, full day conference is being held on 17th February 2015 at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire. There are also a few exhibiting spaces left, with great prices for MTA Members, so get in touch if of interest.
In other news the next tour in the ‘Mittelstand series’ goes to four different German manufacturing companies over February 4th - 5th. The companies are Balluff, Heller, Komet (tools) and MAHLE. And BIS has published some amendments to the Notice for Exporters on Sanctions on Russia.
This week’s Spotlight on… series looks at our e-shot service, and we’ve also updated our website to make it easier for visitors to find members and products quickly.
In economic news the headlines from the UK Manufacturing Output numbers really revolve around the detail; the headline is that manufacturing output fell in October on a month-to-month basis, but this seems mainly to have been in industries which don’t have much importance for most suppliers of manufacturing technology, with pharmaceuticals and chemicals featuring in the ONS report. Taking a 3-month moving average, which smooth’s out some of the monthly variability, only Aerospace of the key industries which we track was growing in the most recent period, although in the case of the Automotive and Machinery industries, this was because of a weak month in August, so we would expect this to change round when we get the November figures.
Have a great week and enjoy the build-up to the festive break (and if you do get a spare minute, please have a go at the Membership Survey!)