Not a bad year after all
Andy Sandford, editor of Engineering Capacity
2011 has been a funny mix of a year. The news has been full of cuts, riots, unemployment and economic decline, the Eurozone seems to be perpetually dancing round the edge of a precipice and growth forecasts are poor. But that doesn’t really tell the real story as far as I’ve seen it.
So I make no apology if offering a dose of festive cheer to cut through the clouds of doom and raise a Christmas toast to UK manufacturing – or at least the engineering-based bit that makes aeroplanes, cars, power stations, medical devices, offshore equipment, diggers, machine tools and the like. Once you get past worrying about who owns the company and where its headquarters are, it is always surprising, to me at least, to realise just how much we do make here.
The automotive industry in particular – with not a single British-owned company in the high-volume end – has really stood up in 2011. As we report on page 6, components suppliers in the West Midlands are reporting that it has been one of the most promising 12 months in the recent history of the UK automotive sector. Global car makers have invested £1bn and created 1,500 jobs in the region. General Motors is reported to have repatriated work worth over £250m since 2010. Global Tier One suppliers are bringing major packages of work back to Europe and turning to Tier Two and Tier Three UK subcontractors to support them.
In fact, exports are a key part of the story. The West Midlands component makers say that they have seen a 31% increase in export orders – and of the 250,000 or so cars made by Jaguar Land Rover every year only 20% are destined for the UK.
So the new funding support for advanced manufacturing supply chains announced by Vince Cable (see page 5) is the icing on the Christmas cake. The Automotive Council reckons that there are potential contracts worth over £1bn on offer that manufacturers would like to place with UK suppliers if the capacity and supply chain could support them. It is also a very positive part of the funding initiative that it aims to encourage SMEs to work together to submit joint proposals – an approach that has been found to be extremely effective for collaborative clusters such as the North West Aerospace Alliance and the Midlands Assembly Network (MAN).
So yes, there is much to celebrate this Christmas – as long as you avoid the soggy Brussels sprouts.
