Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
Firstly we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended the MTA’s Annual Dinner last night at the Park Plaza on Westminster Bridge. It was a fantastic evening and a great celebration of advanced manufacturing in the UK.
We would like to thank those members who contributed to our survey which picked up some of the questions raised in the Government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper. Please see below for the highlights of the results which will feed into other work we are doing to prepare our response to the Green Paper.
The MTA work closely with the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) to ensure we can give our members up to date a relevant information about taking on apprentices. NAS have produced an Employer Guide to Apprenticeships which members might find useful. Please see the story below to download the guide.
We have some sad new to report, Clive Ashmore founder of what is now Star GB passed away this week at the age of 83, everyone at the MTA sends their sincere condolences. He served on MTA committees and a long serving member of the Association. If you would like more information on this please contact Star directly.
Cranfield University are launching Manufacturing Director’s Programme (MDP) on the 27th of April jointly with Cranfield School of Management, find out more within the Brief.
Join Renishaw on the 6th of April for their automotive open house and discover how they could help improve your manufacturing within the automotive industry. Hear from their CMM and Additive Manufacturing specialists and their associate company MSP, as well as the SMMT on the latest trends in the automotive sector. Click here to attend https://renishawukauto.eventbrite.co.uk.
The economic news this week is generally positive. Industrial production in Europe almost reversed the falls recorded in December, with Capital Goods leading the way; the CBI Industrial Trends Survey pointed to strong trends for both orders and output, with the Machinery industry notably featuring in both trends; the Bank of England’s Agents’ report also pointed in the right direction and although the trends were more modest, the best performing sectors generally included those of most interest to MTA members (unless your focus is Oil & Gas which remains weak). The only negative in this week’s news was the slow start to the year in the USA, although this was only in the machinery side of the market (and had been expected), with tooling sales up on the 2016 figures.
Finally we’re delighted to welcome for new members to the association this month Emuge-Franken, SSP Technology Ltd, Voortman UK Ltd and Acsys Lasertechnik UK. Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news.
