Friday Brief

Good morning and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief.

January is now in full swing and we’re set for an exciting 2020 ahead. The word on everyone’s lips within our sector now is MACH. This year’s edition of the show takes place between 20^th – 24^th April at the NEC in Birmingham. If you’re yet to secure your stand for the show, it is time to act, as there are only 800 square meters of space left available to be allocated. See more in the story below and get in touch with the MTA team if you would like to discuss options to exhibit, we’re waiting for your call.

Staying with MACH 2020, we’d like to remind all exhibitors that visitor registration is now open at www.machexhibition.com. So, it is time for you to start inviting your customers and clients to the UK’s national manufacturing show. Registering to attend MACH 2020 before the event will make it easier for attendees to gain access to the show and cut down on waiting times entering the NEC. All registered visitors will receive regular updates about the show and a pre-registration pack, which contains show guide, fold out floorplans, ID badge and a product guide when they get to the exhibition.  

On January 30^th in London the UK Export Finance Supplier Fair takes place. Progress Rail is seeking additional support for locomotive overhaul, maintenance and engine work as they expand their portfolio in the Middle East. Projects that receive financial support from UKEF are required to use UK suppliers, creating strong opportunities overseas for UK companies. See the story below for full details.

MTA member company Renishaw is taking a proactive step to help close the skills gap by trying to inspire more female engineers into the industry. They are promoting careers in engineering by running work experience schemes each year for students in years 10 to 13, find out more about this project within the Brief.

The GTMA have appointment Alan Arthur as Chief Technical Officer at the association. Alan is a highly qualified and experienced Engineering Manager, with over 35 years’ experience in supply chain management and project planning.     

As a result of new data from the ONS we have updated the estimates for UK production that are published in our Basic Facts booklet and prepared a sheet that gives the new figures for 2017 and 2018 - you can get these in the article below.  The only new data this week was the UK productivity estimates for the 3^rd quarter of 2019 which show manufacturing output flat compared to the previous quarter, but down sharply on a year earlier (the preferred measure for a structural piece of data such as this). 

Also this week, there is the new data set for the Contract Price Adjustment Service that we subscribe to on behalf of members - if you have long term supply contacts with customers, this is something you might consider trying to incorporate into the contract and there is more information in the article below.

Thanks so much for reading, we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news and views, until then have a great weekend from everyone at the MTA.