Hello and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
This week saw the launch of our new look Members’ Forums which will allow Members to have their say in their association. We are grateful to all who attended and look forward to publishing the results of the day soon.
We’ve also got information about the MTA’s next key event- the Annual Forecasting Seminar. The 2015 event will be hosted at the Technology Centre on Wolverhampton University’s Science Park. Further details about this popular event, and booking information can be seen below.
There is a chance to submit abstracts for the Micro/Nano Manufacturing Workshop to be held at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington on 24th - 26th November 2015, but you only have until the 30th September to get them in.
For those travelling to EMO this year we’d like to remind you that CELIMO will be holding their international meeting during the event, further details below.
You may have heard recently about legal changes to the regulations governing working hours for those who don’t have a fixed place of work – like many sales and service personnel. Find out how this could affect your business in the story below.
MTA Member’s ABB Robotics are running a seminar to explain why it could pay to invest in robots. Find out more about this automation event below.
As usual at the end of the month, it is a quiet week for economic news, but there were some weak results from the CBI Industrial Trends Survey which, while reflecting broadly what we are seeing in our own surveys, points to a relatively weak summer for manufacturing; the outlook is positive, but not stunningly so, so we will need to keep a close watch on the data that emerges over the next few weeks. This will begin with the PMI numbers next week and the early estimate for the Euro-zone (they don’t do this for the UK) does point to a pick-up in activity there. There was some good news with growth being reported in exports from some of the industries in the UK who are key users of manufacturing technology and the prospects for machine tool orders at a pan-European level also appear to have improved and following a period of running on a flat trend for the next 9-12 months, we should see some growth in the second half of 2016.
Have a good weekend.