Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
We’ll be having a break for the next couple of weeks with the newsletter so we will be back at the start of September with more industry news.
First up MACH 2018 is excited to announce that world leading aircraft landing and braking systems company Safran Landing Systems (ex-Messier-Bugatti-Dowty) will be at next year’s exhibition. Find out more in the story below.
MTA associate members Mathys & Squire have some interesting information on patentability of software. Software is patentable. Additionally, copyright and confidential information in software may provide valuable commercial property and opportunities. Find out more within the Brief.
An autonomous robotic solution for improving process time and health and safety during the manufacture of cardboard boxes has been developed by the Integrated Manufacturing Group (IMG) of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC).
The system was developed for The Cardboard Box Company, an SME based in Accrington that designs, prints and manufactures bespoke corrugated packaging solutions for industrial, retail or promotional displays.
Manufacturers can see the latest in inspection and condition monitoring at Materials Testing 2017, which takes place from 5-7 September in Telford, UK. The biennial event, which returns to the Midlands, is the world’s most comprehensive exhibition of non-destructive testing (NDT), materials testing, condition monitoring and diagnostic technologies. Find out how you can attend in the story below.
The July edition of the MTA Business Survey will close next week, but there is still time to get your return back to us, especially if you have been away on holiday. The on-line form is available at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-jul17 and we hope that as many members as possible will participate, whether you are regular responders or new to the survey.
The manufacturing output figures for the 2nd quarter that were published this week made slightly gloomy reading, especially as the small downturn overall was largely due to the Automotive industry; however, as SMMT have been reporting for a couple of months, there are some model changes that is restricting car output over the summer, so limiting the gloom. The Aerospace industry continues to set new output records and although Machinery output has dropped back from its Q1 level, it remains well above where it was a year ago. The UK continues to run a high trade deficit in goods, but with both exports and imports rising to new record high levels in the 2nd quarter, the deficit was only marginally higher than in the previous period. There was better news in the Bank of England’s Agents’ summary of business conditions with them reporting an increase in output and capacity utilisation in manufacturing based on their interviews between mid-June and mid-July.
That is all for this week, remember we’ll be back in a few weeks with more industry news.
