Bradford & Airedale Manufacturing Alliance

The year of manufacturing!

The latest Bradford and Airedale Manufacturing Alliance (BAMA) event held at the Cedar Court last Thursday proved to be a huge success with nearly 100 delegates attending.

A broad section of regional manufacturers were given the opportunity to listen to two presentations from Professor John Smith, Purchasing Director of Ford Motor Company; and Professor Andrew Day, Ford Professor of Quality Engineering.

The event provided a valuable insight into how local manufacturers can work with larger organisations to grow their business.  It also provided an excellent networking opportunity for local manufacturers to establish and nurture partnership opportunities.

BAMA remains fully committed to providing local manufacturers a ‘voice’ whilst also delivering events that highlight areas of growth and opportunity for what is a vital economic sector for the region.  The forum's tag line for 2012 is 'The Year of Manufacturing'. With such a great turn out and so much interest in the next event, it already seems that this is going to be the case!

Click here to find out more about BAMA including details of the next event at 'FabLab'.

Manufacturing Networks

Does the manufacturing sector need a voice?  I think it does.  In some ways making things has become unfashionable, unless the word “artisan” is attached to it.  For example, a large successful bakery with customers nationwide, employing and training hundreds of people doesn’t have the positive image of a small specialist retail baker with a low volume, local market.

Manufacturers are in general not great networkers.  The marketplace is mostly national or international and marketing efforts are quite rightly focused in those areas.  The down side of that is that there is a lack of contact with other local manufacturers, with decision-makers and with educational bodies.

It’s often not until something goes wrong in a big way that conversations begin.  Take the case of Bombardier in Derby.  It wasn’t until a major contract had been awarded to Siemens that people started questioning what the UK Government could do to procure in the way that other European countries do, that is building in the “home produced” factor without breaking EU procurement law.

Equally the lack of skills and appropriate training of young people are also frequently quoted as a problem for manufacturing employers.  How many organisations have talked to policy makers, schools, colleges and universities about their recruitment and training needs or given an insight into the world of manufacturing? 

I think we need to make it easier to gather views, concerns and needs through the Bradford & Airedale Manufacturing Alliance. Lobbying can be slow to see results but the alternative is to accept things as they are.  If there is one thing that manufacturers are renowned for its innovation, so let’s look at doing things differently, at being more vocal and make links that will benefit business now and in the future.

Sandy Needham
Chief Executive, Bradford Chamber

MAS Funding Secured

Many of the region’s manufacturers, along with the MAS team have shared the frustration of the past few months with no funding available to support our work to improve manufacturing competitiveness and efficiency. However, we are pleased to be able to announce that following successful negotiations with the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Yorkshire Forward, we are again ‘open for business’.

The funding that we have secured will enable us to conduct work through into early 2012. By then it is intended that a new MAS service will be available as a consequence of a Government announcement that £50m is being made available to fund the next three year phase of MAS.

Other Recently Announced Government Support Initiatives for Manufacturing:

The recent Government budget announced a further£7m to support the Manufacturing Advisory Service from 2012 onwards, specifically focused on supply chain development with particular emphasis being placed on opportunities including areas such as low carbon vehicles, civil nuclear and off-shore wind
sectors.

There is also local involvement in a Government supported High Value Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre through the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, both based in South Yorkshire. The vision for this ‘TIC’ is to support research and knowledge transfer into the manufacturing sector, assisting businesses to move up in the ‘high value’ manufacturing sector.

The Government also announced that £45m will fund nine Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centres for Innovative Manufacturing and a further £6m will support the manufacturing pioneers of the future. As part of this programme, an EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Advanced Metrology will create and develop a ‘factory on the machine’ linking measurement and production to minimise cost and allow ever increasing complexity and quality in manufacturing. This will be led by the University of Huddersfield

 

Manufacturing Awards

Businesses that are helping to lead the economic recovery by selling UK products and services overseas are to be honoured with a prestigious new award.

The Outstanding Export Award, a new category in the 2011 EEF Future Manufacturing Awards, will recognise those manufacturing businesses that are exploiting new markets and winning new business abroad.

The new award, in partnership with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), will celebrate new-to-export companies of all sizes which have developed and implemented an export strategy and successfully traded goods and/or services over the past two years.

EEF Senior Economist, Jeegar Kakkad, said: “Manufacturers are making the most of a weak British pound in overseas markets, thus achieving a surge in export opportunities. It’s time for us to acknowledge manufacturers’ initiative, investment and innovation towards advancing our export opportunities to help drive the UK’s economic recovery.”

Susan Haird, Acting Chief Executive of UK Trade & Investment, added: “Manufacturers are leading the exporting renaissance this country is experiencing. Companies that export grow faster, become more resilient to downturns and become more profitable. This award will celebrate and recognise those companies and I hope inspire others to win business abroad.”

Awards winners will be announced in five UK regions during November, culminating in a national award for the UK’s most outstanding export manufacturer in January 2012

Entry is free and simple with forms available from EEF’s awards website www.eef.org.uk/awards. The closing date for entries is 31 July 2011.

The EEF Future Manufacturing Awards are designed to recognise innovation, enterprise, environmental responsibility and skills development across today’s manufacturing industry. Awards are available in the following categories:

- The Business Growth Award

- The Skills & Training Award

- The Innovative Operating Practices Award

- The Innovative People Management Award

- The Environmental Efficiency Award

- The Climate Change Opportunity Award

- Outstanding Achievement by a First and Final Year Apprentice

- Outstanding Achievement by a Young Apprentice

 

 

The Skills Agenda - Meeting Report

Ageing workforce the problem, say manufacturers

Some of Bradford’s manufacturers gathered in the city recently to discuss the looming skills shortage that the industry is expected to face in the near future.

This still-important source of wealth and job creation, formerly in wool and engineering but now in sectors such as digital media, chemicals and food, is finding out, thanks to the support of Bradford Chamber of Commerce, how to fill skills gaps and tackle shortages through mutual support. 

The key speaker at the breakfast event at the Midland Hotel was Morrisons’ HR head, Nathan Clement.  While the nature of skills gaps, such as happened when the food group bought out competitor Safeways a few years ago, is very different to those facing a small independent firm, there were still some lessons to take for the attendees.

A skills matrix and profile of staff, combined with a production matrix and profile, allows Morrisons to keep on top of the movement of talent on its books.  Nathan explained that, while the jargon and model appeared technical and heavy, it was actually light-touch and user-friendly.  Similar systems and applications, albeit in a slimmed-down version, should be adapted and used in smaller firms.

More traditional manufacturers, the meeting was told, will struggle to fill the positions of retiring skilled craftsmen over the next generation.   The changing face of the workplace and educational priorities since the 1970s has meant that there will be few takers when the 50+ generation of workers leave manufacturing as they approach retirement. 

Lee Smith of SEMTA, the Sector Skills Council for the industry, outlined how his organisation was helping with arranging apprenticeships and NVQs, but agreed that there was no getting away from the problems of an ageing workforce.  Morrisons’ model of operational excellence allowed the firm to provide 100,000 vocational qualifications.  A method of ‘imprinting’ – get people early enough, get them to repeat until it becomes routine – was the retailer’s good practice, said Nathan.  People were not born to be winners, they were trained to be winners.

The issue of concerns over skills shortages was raised when the Bradford & Airedale Manufacturing Alliance (BAMA) was launched earlier this year.  BAMA was created by Bradford Chamber of Commerce as a response to calls from within the District for more support for the sector.  It is led by a voluntary steering group of business people from within the field.