Good morning and welcome to the Friday Brief.
Today is officially Brexit day and the UK will leave the EU at 11pm this evening. Our Head of External Affairs, Paul O’Donnell gives an update on the current political situation and how the MTA will be engaging with government on the next stage of the process. Also, our HR & Employment Law partner Citation have produced a guide to Brexit in the story below to help advise members.
This week’s MACH 2020 update looks at how the use of robotic automation can improve efficiency and what you can expect to see at the exhibition. More details within the Brief and again, we would like to remind you that visitor registration is now open, so start inviting your customers to attend https://www.machexhibition.com/visit/visitor-registration#/.
The Manufacturing Technology Centre is hosting Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Manufacturing 2020 on February 12th. They will disseminate project work and present their roadmap for future artificial intelligence development. The event will feature live, cutting-edge technology demonstrators, and delegates will be given the opportunity to provide input as to what research lines should be prioritised. Details on how to attend can be found in the story.
The MTA met with leading academics at Imperial College London earlier this week to hear from them about some of the ways that university is engaging with businesses, particularly in relation to digital transformation and innovation. Imperial is one of the world’s leading science and engineering institutions and they were keen for our members to get involved in some of their events. Links are below.
The DIT World Events Team have now formally issued a call for exhibits for the UK Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. Follow the link in the story below to register your interest in attending.
This week saw the first piece of “full year” data for 2019 released in the form of the output data from the SMMT for cars, engines and commercial vehicles. All of these were at lower levels than in 2018, although the variable extents but perhaps the most striking figure is the extent to which exports by this industry dominate total output and, within that, a large majority of shipments are to the European Union.
New data, up to November, from the USA shows demand for manufacturing technology (mainly machines) is down by about 20% from what was an exceptional year in 2018, while the tooling market is running at about the same level as 2018. The Economic Sentiment Index produced by the European Commission showed an improvement in January which was mainly driven by the industry and construction sectors. Their data on capacity utilisation showed a stabilisation following a run of 3 negative quarters at a European level, but the UK specifically saw this fall back following the positive trend last October. Finally, this week, there is a pointer to the list of companies in Scotland who have received investment grants recently.
That’s all for this week, we’ll be back next Friday with more industry news and views, and of course we’re very much looking forward to seeing over 400 of you on Thursday 6th February at our Annual Dinner, there is still space to squeeze a handful more people in, so if you’d like to do some early year - or pre MACH – networking get in touch at events@mta.org.uk or call 0207 298 6416.
Have a great weekend.
