Good morning and welcome to the last Friday Brief of the year.
We’ll start with a reminder from that we are looking for our members’ support of the Year of Engineering, so please have a read and participate. The government has declared 2018 as the ‘Year of Engineering’ and, with MACH 2018 just around the corner we would like to gain the support of all our members and exhibitors by championing this project. Please read the story below and get in contact with Tom Lane at the MTA to pledge your support, email Tom at tlane@mta.org.uk.
The latest results from the CBI Industrial Trends Survey support the view that the manufacturing sector in general and the key Engineering industries in particular are ending the year in a good position. Both output and order books are at a high level with Machinery, Automotive and Other Transport Equipment (mainly Aerospace) leading the way in both areas. We also have some revised figures for UK production by product for 2016 and while the data for machine tools, tooling and tool/work-holding is only of academic interest, this does give us the only source of data on output of sub-contractors; metal-cutting parts were worth £5.1 billion while metal-forming parts output was valued at £1.9 billion.
That’s all for this year, we’ll be back in the first week of January with more industry news. All that is left for us to do is wish all our members a very happy Christmas and a healthy new year. We look forward to seeing you at our Annual Dinner on 8th February at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London and of course MACH 2018 in April.