Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
Cranfield University and the MTA are set to launch a Manufacturing Leadership Programme course for SMEs this September (2016). To celebrate the launch of the course SMEs are invited to a complimentary briefing event on the 28th June 2016 at Cranfield University. More information on the course itself can be found within the Brief and please contact Laura Pickering in the MTA office for more details on this exciting new offering from the MTA and Cranfield University (lpickering@mta.org.uk).
We have been informed that bureaucratic difficulties and delays which were previously reported for machinery and parts entering Turkey have worsened since the beginning of 2016. For full details on this please see the story below. If this tallies with your experience please let us know.
The China-Britain Business Council would like to introduce its latest report, Made in China 2025 – Opportunities for UK Partnership, delivered in conjunction with UK Trade & Investment on the opportunities for UK companies in the manufacturing sector in China.
Sticking with the subject of China, Tony Hague MD of PP Electrical MTA member has submitted a blog to share with the rest of the membership on how to ‘China Proof’ your business. This feature gives an insight into how UK machinery builders can ‘China proof’ themselves against lower cost replicas.
The MTA has been involved in the development of standards for new level 2 and level 3 apprenticeship in metrology, in association with the National Physical Laboratory. The level 2 apprenticeship is approaching its conclusion you can have your say through the story below.
Businesses in the automotive supply chain that need to invest in bespoke tools to complete contracts are to get specialist support, thanks to the launch of a new Tooling Finance product by Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking. Find out more details on this in the story below.
Innovate UK have recently announced a new competition for innovation in Additive Manufacturing (AM), in which up to £4.5million will be invested in collaborative research industrial projects.
On 12 May, the IfM held its annual Briefing Day, attended by more than 150 senior industrialists and policymakers. You can read a summary of what the IfM researchers considered some of the challenges of competing in an Industry 4.0 in the story below.
The latest GDP data from Europe had generally good news, with the pace of growth across the region picking up a little compared to the end of last year; of particular note was the strong growth in Germany which, if it can be sustained through the year will pull the rest of the EU along with them. Domestically, the indications from the Bank of England’s Agents’ remains slightly negative for manufacturing as a whole, but there are some glimmers that we might be approaching a turning point and that once we are past the EU Referendum (assuming a vote to remain), we should see an improvement in the sector.
Thank you for reading and we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news. Until then have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.