UK manufacturing - not all doom and gloom

Mick Hall, Chairman of the Metalforming Machinery Makers' Association, delivers his Summer message on the state of UK manufacturing.

As Chairman of the Metalforming Machinery Makers' Association (MMMA) I am always interested to read what other people are saying about the manufacturing sector of UK plc.

Well, the more I read, whether it is websites, the trade and technical press or the national press, the more difficult it is to get a thoroughly clear understanding of the state of manufacturing in the UK and what the future holds.

One day I read encouraging stories, the next day it is negative.

As an example I picked up an engineering journal the other day and early in the publication was a story about a UK company "repatriating" (I like that word) its manufacturing from China to a brand new production facility in the UK.

They have been using China to manufacture their products since 2001.

Now they find that increased shipping costs have counterbalanced the low wage advantage.

The company is also saying it will be more convenient from a management point of view and yes, new jobs will be created.

Pity stories like this are not given more prominence.

On another front I read that the performance of UK manufacturing remains relatively depressed because it did not respond sufficiently well to the increase in world trade during 2004.

But the same article does point out that UK engineering faired rather better than manufacturing as a whole, forecasting continued growth into the future even at a very modest rate.

It was also interesting read that the report said that the one of the reasons for such a dismal performance during 2004 could also have been the UK's continuing off-shoring of product and component supply.

A few months back, I heard of an engineer in a company, who allegedly said: "We manufacture some of our products in China, but they are not as good as the ones we don't".

If they are not so good, why make them in China?.

I am thinking that the company that "repatriated" its production maybe has got it right in more ways than one.

I know of a number of companies, who have no inclination to take their production to China or any other low wage economy to be precise.

When I look closely at these companies, I believe I am right in saying that they are the ones that will survive and go on to prosper in our economy.

Their complete attitude to business spells it out loud and clear and you know, they are very highly competitive.

Well, we have all read about Rover Group and now the question is, how beneficial will this deal, with Nanjing Automobile Corporation, be to manufacturing in the UK and the West Midlands in particular.

I am afraid I am like a lot of other people I just do not know, because like everyone else, I do not know who owns what.

The only thing I can say is that there is a fairly good chance of some form of car manufacturing taking place somewhere in the West Midlands, if not it could be a "Chinese takeaway".

I think we just have to wait and see on this one.

At the MMMA we remain upbeat about metalforming in the UK.

We believe there is a very profitable niche market here and you know, we have some excellent skilled youngsters coming along, just look at the entries we had in this years ISME's sheet metal skills competition.

We present the MMMA Trophy for the best use of metal forming equipment in the Open Class and this year, the winner was Jamie Anderson an apprentice from BAE Systems in Brough, Yorkshire and he showed some excellent skills in his submitted piece.

One piece submitted in the Test Piece Class was so good, that one of the judges stated that he could not find any fault with it - the dimensions and details were 100% accurate.

This shows you that we have wonderful skills in this country.

We would like to see more companies entering their apprentices and young employees for this competition.

Those that do always tell us it helps with the on going training of their apprentices and young employees.

Every 2 years the MMMA produces a members' handbook, which acts as a reference book for the fabrication industry.

It has always been produced as a paper document, but next year we have decided to produce it as a CD as nearly everyone has access to a computer.

We will also be having a members' hospitality stand at MACH 2006, which will form part of the "Metalworking Village".

We will also be attending a number of regional engineering shows around the UK, again with a central hospitality stand for our members to hold meetings and relax a little.

We will also be incorporating the latest technology onto our website during the next 12 months.

So we are being pro-active at the MMMA, which as Chairman I am keen to encourage.

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