Friday Brief Intro 26/08/2022

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! Can you believe it’s almost September? We are ready for everything that the industry has is store for us next month!

Delivered by Brunel Business School, Help to Grow equips SME owners and senior managers with practical skills and the support they need for sustainable and profitable growth and resilience over time. Take a look at the course details in the story below.

It has been drawn to our attention that someone has been calling BSI committee members pretending to be BSI and requesting your confidential information. Please be vigilant when answering calls from anyone claiming to be from BSI. We have recently been alerted of a recent spate of telephone calls during which the caller states that he is calling from BSI. More details can be found in the story below.

This week we have a few BSI standards for you to take a look at. One proposal includes Ergonomics of human-system interaction, the second includes the NWIP Scheme for certification of PII processing operations and the final one includes Additive manufacturing for metals — Non-destructive testing and evaluation — Imperfections classification in PBF parts. Please read more in the story.

We would like to invite you to a one-day workshop that BSI is holding with Microsoft on 06 September in Central London on conformity assessment for digital services. The purpose of the workshop is to discuss some of the challenges inherent in developing conformity assessment modules for digital services and the risks of trade barriers that might arise from nation or region-specific regulatory approaches. Find out more below.

The MTA attended the Institute of Exports – UK Trade is Changing webinar which included proposed details of the government’s new Target Operating Model, the Single Trade Window, the Trusted Trader Scheme and the Eco-System of Trust. Businesses have to start preparing now for the changes that the government is planning to introduce to how international trade operates in the UK at the end of 2023. Check out more info below.

The MTA has secured a guaranteed place on one of the STEMAZING courses for a female engineer from within MTA membership. The MTA is always willing to encourage the young generation into STEM careers and are keen to support women in engineering, therefore, the MTA is sponsoring STEMazing Women – Inspiration Academy to reach the women in STEM and children with a programme that we know makes real impact. Check out more in the story.

One of the main questions the MTA are asked when hosting stands at overseas shows are for a list of UK exhibiting companies. We are currently compiling these lists for IMTS and AMB Stuttgart in September so please let us know if you are exhibiting at either show. Have a look below.

We also have a piece this week on the new iteration of the Recovery Loan Scheme which is designed to support businesses as they look to invest and grow. Read the article below to find out the key features of the scheme and the eligibility criteria.

With the announcement this morning of the new energy price cap for consumers from October 1st, Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA, has provided some thoughts about energy prices for businesses – of course, these are not capped! He includes some comparisons with European economies and the review of the UK scheme to provide relief to energy intensive industries for some of the indirect costs of funding renewable energy policies. We will have some questions in our next Business Survey to help us understand the extent of the problem and how it affects the different types of company in the association.

This week saw the publication of the August edition of the CBI Industrial Trends Survey which marked a turning point for the manufacturing sector with the first negative balance for output since February 2021. The data for order books was also negative although in this case, the balance remains above the long-run average. While on the UK specifically, we also take a look at the trade data for the 2nd quarter which came out last week.

The other element of our economic news article this week is the flash estimates of the Purchasing Managers Index for manufacturing. There was a sharp fall in the readings for the UK which slipped into negative territory for the first time since May 2020, led by a sharp fall in output. These are only available for a limited number of countries but we take a look at the trends for the Euro-zone (including France and Germany), Japan and the USA in our article below.

Thanks for keeping up to date with us this week! We hope you all have a great weekend!

Energy Costs Dominating Agenda

With the announcement of the new energy price cap for consumers this morning, this is a topical subject, especially for businesses who don’t have the benefit of a cap on energy prices. Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA (of which MTA is a member) has taken a look at the subject and he notes that soaring […]

BSI Hoax Calls

Brunel University London: Government-funded SME Management Course – Help to Grow

Want to take your business to the next level? Help to Grow: Management course is a UK-government funded programme for SMEs with world-class business skill development. Delivered by Brunel Business School, Help to Grow equips SME owners and senior managers with practical skills and support they need for sustainable and profitable growth and resilience over […]

Extended Recovery Loan Scheme

The new iteration of the Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) launched this week (August 2022) is designed to support access to finance for UK small businesses as they look to invest and grow. Businesses can use the finance for any legitimate business purpose – including managing cashflow, investment and growth. However, businesses must be able to […]

Economic News

CBI Industrial Trends Survey, August 2022: The latest results from the CBI Industrial Trends Survey (ITS) show the first reduction in manufacturing output since the survey dated February 2021. This survey, although dated August, really covers July and the three month period from May to July. The balance for the volume of output over the previous […]

Are you attending IMTS/AMB Stuttgart?

MTA STEMAZINGWomen Opportunity

The MTA is always willing to encourage the young generation into STEM careers and are keen to support women in engineering, therefore, the MTA is sponsoring STEMazing Women – Inspiration Academy to reach the women in STEM and children with a programme that we know makes real impact. STEMAZINGWomen initiatives are to shine as a visible role […]

Target Operating Model will ‘change UK trade’

Invitation from BSI to Workshop on Conformity Assessment for Digital Services, 06 September, Central London

BSI Standards

CEN ISO/TR 9241-311 (N 1739) – New Work Item Proposal Please be advised that a New Work Item Proposal has been loaded to the BSI Standards Development Portal for comment. Any comments received will be submitted to the national committee PH/9 “Applied ergonomics” for consideration when deciding the UK response to the associated Standards Development […]

BS ISO 19450 – Link to Draft for public comment

Please be advised that a Draft for public comment has been loaded to the BSI Standards Development Portal for comment. Any comments received will be submitted to the national committee AMT/4 “Industrial data and manufacturing interfaces” for consideration when deciding the UK response to the associated Standards Development Organisation. Title: BS ISO 19450 Automation systems […]

Friday Brief