Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
A final reminder that we are holding our Spring Economic Update session next Thursday, 27th April.
The event is being held at the premises of MTA Member GF Machining Solutions in Coventry. You can get more details and link to the registration form - the event is free, but we need to know who is coming for administration purposes - from the MTA web-site at www.mta.org.uk/event/spring-economic-update.
The MTA has been asked to help the Review of Industrial Digitalisation, an initiative being led by Juergen Maier, CEO of Siemen’s UK. The aim is to understand why UK manufacturing has been slower on the uptake of digital technologies than some other countries. One part of that is a questionnaire, which you can take part in through the story below, to make sure that the analysis is applied to the right targets.
This week the MTA’s James Fudge has been representing the Association over in China at CIMT, where we have been hosting the UK Pavilion. Find out more on China and exporting below.
Prime Minister Teresa May this week called a snap general election, which will take place on 8th June a mere seven weeks away. The MTA’s Head of External Affairs, Paul O’Donnell, gives his thoughts on the latest from Westminster.
Congratulations to The University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) which received international recognition for its outstanding research and development as it was named a Supplier of the Year by The Boeing Company at an awards ceremony in the USA on 12th April 2017.
Would you like your company or research institute to take part in collaborative R&D projects with potential European partners on Technology that could greatly benefit your company? Then you should consider joining the SMART Advanced Manufacturing EUREKA cluster. See below for more details on how to get involved.
Staying with awards we’re pleased that the NEC has won a prestigious international one, after securing the 2017 UFI Operations and Services Award. We work very closely with the NEC to deliver MACH exhibition every two years and we’d like to congratulate the team there on their success.
Next week MTA members Fronius UK will be hosting an Open House at their Technology Centre in Milton Keynes (26th April 2017 from 10am). Take a tour and experience a wide range of demonstrations and discussions about their entire range of welding products, see within the brief for registration details.
On the 25th of April, Mazak are hosting a specialist event, at their European Technology Centre, ideal for UK gear manufacturers. Held in conjunction with Sandvik Coromant and Renishaw, the ‘Get in Gear’ event will showcase state-of-the-art technologies used throughout the complete gear cutting process, from concept and design through to manufacture, measurement, and even repair using additive manufacturing. https://www.mazakeu.co.uk/gig/
MTA member GF Machining Solutions’ will host an Open House in May to launch their new CUT P series of advanced wire EDM machines to UK audiences. If you’re interested in attending please see the below story.
Just a reminder that our biennial survey of charges made for visits by service engineers is still open for your response. We have sent out reminders this week those member companies who we think this is relevant to, but if this is of interest and you have not seen the questionnaire, please contact Geoff Noon at MTA (e-mail: gnoon@mta.org.uk) for a copy.
In a quiet week for economic news, we report on signs of improvement in the US market after a slow start to 2017 and a continuation of some good numbers on profitability among UK manufacturing companies that contrast somewhat with the weak investment numbers at the end of 2016 that we highlighted a couple of weeks ago; although not conclusive, this does suggest that these might have been a one-off rather than sign of enduring weakness, but only time will tell.
That is all for this week, we’ll be back next Friday with industry news, until then have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.
