Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
The ballot packs for MACH 2018 should have hit desks this week so you can start planning your stand for the next exhibition. If you have not received a ballot pack yet please see the story below which contains all the information you’ll need to apply.
Skills and workforce development regularly top members’ priority lists. With that in mind the MTA wish to survey our members to get your opinions on the development of a 3-5 year Learning and Development strategy, please take five minutes to complete the survey here - http://www.mta.org.uk/ld-member-survey.
Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Digital Economy & Society, will open the Factories of the Future Conference 2016: Materialising Factories 4.0. the conference takes place over two days 15th and 16th September, to find out how you can attend see the below story.
MTA members Forcam have produced a white paper for managers seeking to boost productivity and quality by introducing a continuous improvement process (CIP). The paper introduces the concept of true overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and can be accessed in the story below.
A pioneering collaboration between the University of Sheffield School of Mathematics and Statistics and the Machining Group of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing is developing simulation tools that can be used to create new automated manufacturing processes. Find out more details within the Brief about this exciting development.
The July edition of the MTA Business Survey was launched at the start of this week and remains open for Members to respond. You can access the on-line form at http://www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-july16 - we look forward to your participation.
The main economic news this week was, of course, the cut in UK interest rates and a raft of other measures by the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to “support growth”; in the article below Geoff Noon explores the meaning behind some of these moves and whether or not they will be successful. Ironically, one of the best bits of news from this for our sector was a further weakening of Sterling which should help exporters - although the cut in interest rates had largely been priced in to pre-announcement rates, the other measures took the market more by surprise and while the FTSE closed up, the currency was down. Comments from the Chancellor that the measures were intended to support the economy “as we negotiate our exit from the EU” suggest that they may be in place for some time.
Other economic news this week included the latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector which was poor for the UK and a slower rate of growth for the Euro-zone economy in the 2nd quarter of 2016.
That’s all for this week, we’ll be back next Friday with more news, until then from everyone at the MTA have a great weekend.