Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
MTA CEO James Selka used his speech at the Stuttgart Moulding Expo to deliver an upbeat message to European counterparts on Brexit and doing business in the UK. Mr Selka emphasised that “the UK are open for business” and explain the background as to why the UK made this historic decision last June and how we can move forward together. Read more on this in the story below.
The MTA is looking to setup a new Technical Committee which will look at and discuss all things Additive Manufacturing. The aim of this AM Technical Committee will be to provide an opportunity for MTA members to discuss the latest technology, issues, standards, legislation, skills, and events related to AM. If you are interested in getting involved and contributing please contact the MTA’s Technical Manager Josh Dugdale at jdugdale@mta.org.uk.
The May business survey is now available online, we appreciate all contributions so please take a few minutes to fill it in, you can access the online form at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-may17.
After the success of the 2017 Annual Dinner, we are delighted to announce the MTA Annual Dinner is returning to the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London on 8th February 2018. We have opened registration early and will be holding this year’s rates until 30th June 2017. More details can be found here.
The MTA have been working with Autosport magazine over the last few months and there is opportunity for members to submit automotive related news to their quarterly engineering special. Find out more details and what kind of stories they are looking for below.
The AMRC has been presented with a national award from BAE Systems. The award is to recognise the impact of a project that matured into a full production system and is on track to help the company achieve its affordability targets over the coming years.
The project ‘Robotic Countersinking, The Future Today’, involved the development and implementation of an automated production system enabling robotic countersinking technology to accurately machine holes in composite aircraft components. Well done to all involved at the AMRC.
The data from the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) surveys for manufacturing was generally positive and even where the index slipped a bit - such as in the UK where the May figure of 56.7 is still very strong - the resulting reading generally remained positive. Among the 27 countries that we track, only 3 (South Korea, China and Greece) had a reading below 50 which implies a contraction in manufacturing activity. For the 3rd month in a row, Germany was the strongest of the Euro-zone industries and this month also saw significantly higher PMIs in Hungary, Brazil, Turkey and Russia. The latest figures from the European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Index saw a slight dip from what was a very strong April figure and industry confidence was broadly flat.
That is all for this week, we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news, until then have a great weekend.
