Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
This week the MTA has been busy at international exhibitions promoting UK companies. MTA Head of Events James Fudge and Head of Sales Sam Jones are at AMB Stuttgart. We’ll have a report on this next Friday.
However, we’ll start this week with MTA Statistician Geoff Noon’s report on IMTS 2016 from Chicago, Geoff and MTA CEO James Selka have spent the week representing the Association across the pond. You can read the report below.
The MTA sponsor an Arkwright Scholar and the current recipient of this Patrick Bill, is looking for a week’s work experience placement in the October half-term. If you think you might be able to help, please contact the Laura Pickering, the MTA’s Education & Development Co-ordinator, at lpickering@mta.org.uk.
On Wednesday 19th October the MTC in Coventry are hosting a Robotics Open Lab session. The day will focus on accelerating the development of new robotic technologies and increasing the competitiveness of Europe's manufacturing sector. . Full details on the event can be found below
During the IMTEX exhibition in January 2017, CELIMO (the European grouping for importers and distributors of manufacturing technology, of which MTA is a member) has been invited to send a group of European companies who are interested in representing Indian manufacturers in the European market. We last ran this in 2013 when representatives found a vibrant machine tool and accessory manufacturing sector that has developed further in the past 4 years.
Being involved in setting British standards is a great way of ensuring your voice is heard and that you’re aware of what may affect you as a business. BSI are encouraging MTA members to be more active in this process, more information about becoming a committee member is available online, including a handy pocket guide covering what you can expect when you start. More details available here http://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/about-bsi/uk-national-standards-body/how-to-get-involved-with-standards/become-a-committee-member/. Or contact the MTA’s Technical Manager Richard Griffiths on rgriffiths@mta.org.uk to find out more.
European industrial production took a dip in July, but this followed a good June and continues the see-saw trend that we have seen for this data over the past 9-12 months; within the total, the capital goods sector led the way down, having been the strongest element in the growth in June so it is difficult to draw any clear conclusions from these figures. The data from the US about the machine tool market reflects the continued weakness resulting from the sharp fall in the oil & gas sector and the impact of the strong dollar on their manufacturing exports. We also have some figures from an international exchange of data that took place during IMTS this week – contact Geoff Noon (gnoon@mta.org.uk) if you would like a copy.
That is all for this week, have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.
