Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.
The Internet of Manufacturing UK conference 2019 took place this week and provided an in-depth look at how manufacturers can look to lower costs, drive profitability and accelerate digital transformation. MTA CEO James Selka DL joined a panel discussion on Factories of the Future: Transforming Manufacturing with Industry 4.0 at the conference in Farnborough on Wednesday, which was well received. At the same event there was an update from Graham Malley of the Made Smarter team on the progress of the project, you can find out more on both below.
The April edition of the MTA Business Survey will be closing on Monday, but it is not too late to get your returns to us via the on-line form at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-apr19 if you do it by midday on Monday.
MTA members Yamazaki Mazak have released dates for its specialist ‘Manufacturing Solutions NOW’ Open House in June at its European Technology Centre in Worcester. The Open House, will run from the 11th to 13th June, find out how to attend below.
Sticking with MTA members, MSP has become a partner of the newly-launched TechUP project, which will give 100 women across the North and Midlands the chance to pursue opportunities in the digital and tech sector by learning new skills. This new project will encourage women to re-train in the digital sector.
The EMO Hannover press conference came to London last week and the MTA were happy to welcome our colleagues from Germany to the UK. MTA CEO James Selka addressed the gathered press to update on UK companies’ involvement in the show. The 22nd EMO will take place from 16th to 21st September 2019 in Hanover, more details can be found below.
As a member of the MTA you get access to Croner services. Croner are expert consultants in Employment Law, HR, and Health & Safety, with a range of tools and services to help businesses. They are hosting a series of webinars throughout June on different aspects that could help your business. See the story below for full listings.
It has been a busy week for economic news, so this week’s article focuses mainly on the UK data (we will cover the European data next week), although we do also covers the latest trends in the US market where machinery demand has fallen from last year’s levels (mainly because of an exceptional month in March 2018), but the tooling market continues to grow. Last Friday - too late for our deadlines - the UK manufacturing output data was positive, although the ONS notes that most of the growth seems to be related to the pre-Brexit (that never happened!) stock-building with sectors such as pharmaceuticals and food & drink seeing strong growth. The capital goods industries also had a positive trends, although at the industry level the trends were mixed. The growth in manufacturing output contributed significantly to the acceleration in GDP for the UK economy; with the quarterly rate at +0.5%, the annualised figure accelerated to +1.8%, but this is likely to fall again in the 2nd period of the year. The 1st quarter ended relatively weakly with the service and construction sectors contracting in March and with Q2-18 having been a good quarter, we are likely to see a reversal of this pattern in 2019. Much of this is reflected in the Bank of England’s latest Inflation Report, although significantly, their projections for interest rate rises in the UK have been revised downwards because of lower expectations for US interest rates as well as global economic developments.
That’s all for this week’s newsletter have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.
