Friday Brief Intro 06/05/2022

Good afternoon and welcome to the first Friday Brief of the Month! We hope you all enjoy this amazing weather over the weekend!

First off today we would like to draw your attention to a ‘Save The Date!’ from F1 in Schools for their World Finals. The dates are 10th-14th July at Silverstone UK so get these dates in your diary.

This week we have 3 BSI Standards that are available for you to comment on. The first is on Additive manufacturing of metals — Powder bed fusion — Presentation of material properties in material data sheets, the second on Model-Based Standards Authoring MBSA and the last on Amd 2 Test conditions for machining centres. Take a look at the story to find the details.

BSI’s latest piece on the UK manufacturers’ digital technology adoption has some great contributions from industry experts. Download the article and find out who the experts are in the story below.

Following the disruption of the last few years, there has never been a better time to make sure you’re getting Health & Safety right in your business. Citation have put together a FREE checklist on how to prepare for an upcoming HSE inspection. Please find a link to the checklist in the story and find out about your MTA Member benefit.

Croner would like to invite you to attend our complimentary event exclusively for local association members at 2:00pm on Tuesday 28th June 2022. Learn how to simplify the toughest challenges of working in HR. You can find details on the topics that will be covered in the story below.

TJM Capital, a private equity investment firm focusing on lower and middle-market growth businesses has purchased the Machine Tool Solutions Division of the UK’s 600 Group. This acquisition includes Colchester Machine Tool Solutions, with offices in the UK, Germany, and Australia, and Clausing Industrial, Inc., headquartered in Michigan. “The Machine Tool Solutions Division is a perfect fit with our growth strategy,” according to TJM Chairman Tom McDonough. Check out more details on the acquisition in the story.

We have three separate economy related articles this week; the main headlines come from the April edition of the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) survey where “mixed” is probably the best description. The UK saw this measure improve compared to the March reading and was joined in this experience by the USA; however, the manufacturing PMI fell in the Euro-zone and China, although the distinction here is that it was still pointing to an expansion in activity for the former but was below the crucial 50 level for the latter.

We also have a piece that looks at the decision by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to raise interest rates again this week. We consider how useful this is in controlling inflation which is being driven largely by external factors over which the UK (or indeed any individual country) has any control and also think about the implications for the future path of interest rates.

Our economic news article this week is focused on Europe with the latest GDP data and an analysis of the European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Index data, which includes the latest figures for capacity utilisation.

Finally, the April edition of the MTA Business Survey is underway and you can access the questionnaire at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-apr22. Please take a couple of minutes to let us have your input to this – we would love to hear from you.

That is all we have for this week’s Friday Brief. Thank you for keeping up to day with us and enjoy the sunny weekend!

ECONOMIC NEWS

European Commission Economic Sentiment Indicator, Capacity Utilisation and Investment Survey, April 2022: The European Commission (EC) draws from a range of surveys to construct confidence indicators for six sectors of the economy and then uses five of these (financial services is not used) make up its Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI). The other point to note […]

MPC VOTE TO INCREASE UK INTEREST RATES

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 6-3 to increase interest rates by 25 points to 1.0%. This was not unexpected and it is worth noting that the 3 dissenters actually wanted an even larger increase of 50 basis points. The debate among economists generally is now two-fold; to what extent is raising […]

PURCHASING MANAGERS INDEX FOR MANUFACTURING

Because of national holidays in various places, the manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data has been published over most of this week; as a result, the Global PMI compiled by J P Morgan using the data from S&P Global was not complete when it was released on Monday showing a further fall to 52.2. This […]

BSI – Building confidence in digital technology adoption for UK manufacturers

The use of industrial digital technologies (IDTs) is gathering pace across the manufacturing sector – but what are the drivers of and the impediments to their adoption? Our latest piece on the UK manufacturers’ digital technology adoption has some great contributions from industry experts James Selka DL, Rab Scott, Nikesh Mistry, Jack Semple and Ben Sheridan and includes recent case studies of […]

TJM Capital Partners (TJM) Has Purchased the Machine Tool Solutions Division of the UK’s 600 Group

Adapting to the changing world of business

Croner would like to invite you to attend our complimentary event exclusively for local association members at 2:00pm on Tuesday 28th June 2022. Join our expert HR and health & safety speaker from Croner and learn how to simplify the toughest challenges of working in HR. Tackle nasty grievances and disciplinaries head-on, shield your business […]

How to prepare for your upcoming HSE inspection | Citation FREE checklist

Did you know that in 2020/21, 185 cases were successfully prosecuted – or referred to COPFS for prosecution in Scotland – by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)? Following the disruption of the last few years, there has never been a better time to make sure you’re getting Health & Safety right in your business. To help […]

BSI Standards

Please be advised that a New Work Item Proposal has been loaded to the BSI Standards Development Portal for comment. We hope this will assist in increasing awareness of the Standards Development Portfolio. Any comments received will be submitted to AMT/008 Additive manufacturing, for consideration when deciding the UK response to ISO. Proposal: ISO/TC 261 […]

Friday Brief