Good morning and welcome to this week’s special edition of the Friday Brief on a Thursday.
We are pleased to announce that Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking is to be, once again, the headline sponsor of the MACH Exhibition. This is the fourth time Lloyds Bank has sponsored MACH, further strengthening the long term relationship between the bank and the MTA.
The Spring Economic Update of the MTA Forecast for the UK Machine Tool and Cutting Tool markets will soon be available and we will be holding an Economic Update briefing on Thursday 27th April. The morning briefing will be held at MTA Member, GF Machining in Coventry.
One week after the Levy was introduced, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has paused the decision over funding allocations for apprenticeship provision for non-levy-paying employers, to allow time for a careful review. See within the Brief for more details.
Moulding Expo is a trade fair which was jointly developed with the industry and offers a number of innovative companies an opportunity to market their products, establish new networks and gain a foothold on new markets. The MTA will have a stand at the event to support our exhibiting Members, if you would like more details please contact James Fudge at jfudge@mta.org.uk or see the story below.
HRH The Duke of York visited the Sheffield City Region on Monday 10 April 2017 to open the University of Sheffield’s Factory 2050 at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). See below for more details.
The National Apprenticeship Awards 2017 are open for entries to compete to be named ‘the best of the best’ on a regional and national level. Now in its fourteenth year, the search is on to find England’s top Apprenticeship employers and apprentices. Find how your company can get involved within the Brief.
Intellectual Property (IP) doesn’t just protect technology from competitors. It builds shareholder value and serves as a cost efficient tool to control risk. MTA associate members Mathys & Squire have written a feature for this week on how to use IP to build and protect your business. To discuss the best approach for protecting the IP in your manufacturing business contact Sean Leach, Partner at Mathys & Squire at saleach@mathys-squire.com.
We have released the Spring Update to the MTA forecasts for the UK machine tool and cutting tool market; you can read a little more in the item below, which also includes the links to download the full document along with the Spring 2017 edition of the Global Machine Tool Forecast but, in summary, we not expect the UK machine tool market to grow by +7½% in 2017 and for the cutting tool market to be +3¼% higher than in 2016. Members are also reminded that they can come and hear more of the background to the forecasts at our Economic Update meeting that is being held on 27th April.
Although the headlines on the UK manufacturing output data were modest at best, the underlying picture for most of the industries of interest to suppliers of manufacturing technology equipment remains strong and we are even seeing the recent slow but steady pick-up in the Machinery industry being confirmed as a trend rather than a couple of good months. This industry is most exposed to the global economic environment and is best placed to benefit quickly from the exchange rate boost to UK exports that we have at the moment. The European industrial data also showed a better result for capital goods than for total industrial production.
