Bradford & Airedale Manufacturing Alliance

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.