Friday Brief Intro 14/10/2022

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief. We’re very glad you have joined us for some stories today.

First up this week we have a story from CECIMO. They have shared with us an opportunity from one of their members, Spanish Association AFM. They are part of the SMART program – an industry-driven EUREKA Cluster initiative in Advanced Manufacturing promoting R&D&I projects. SMART recently launched its 6th Open Call, which encourages companies to come up with some innovative projects (submitting a preliminary outline) for which they will be able to get support both in the creation of a finalised project proposal and in the identification of national funding opportunities. Find out more in the story below.

Are you interested in participating in a recruitment event aimed specifically at members of the Cadet Forces? The aim of the event is to bring members of the Sea Cadets, Army Cadet Force and Air Training Corps from across all of Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire, their adult instructors and parents together with employers who recognise the benefits and work ready life skills that cadets obtain, to discuss career opportunities and apprenticeship placements. You can check out more details in the story below.

You are invited to join us for our Make UK International Trade Webinar – Product Labelling: UKCA & CE Marking at 12:00 – 13:00 on 9th November. This short webinar will provide a further update on the actions that business will need to take to ensure compliance before Jan 1st, 2023. Book your place through the link in the story.

DIT have added two new pages to their website for exporter and importers. The new “Check How to Import and Export” which gives new trade information including which licences and certificates you need for your goods, paying the right VAT and duties for your goods, how to make declarations for your goods to clear the UK border and which commodity codes you’ll need to classify your goods. Find more information below.

The GTMA is holding a webinar for manufacturers, Managing Energy Costs, on October 20th, 2-3pm. The webinar is being run with energy specialists BCR Associates. Please go to the story to find the flyer that tell you how to register.

This week we celebrated World Mental Health Day, and whilst shining a light on such an important topic is essential, it’s something we should be acknowledging daily. One huge contributor to poor mental health is work-related stress. Citation have a guide for you to download through a link in their story.

BEIS Systems have included three great stories on Advanced manufacturing, modernisation and training in their newsletter that we feel may be of interest to you. Please find the story below to check them out.

The government has published details of the relief scheme for energy bills, which gives more detail on the likely value of the energy support package. We have the details of how the scheme will work and also the link to the review which BEIS is carrying out into the scheme. The government promised a review after three months and it turns out that they mean to publish it on that timescale which means starting to gather data when the scheme is only a few days old. Nonetheless, we would encourage members to respond to the survey as the more evidence they have from the manufacturing sector the more likely it is that support will continue (if necessary) as the intention is to target the intervention at vulnerable businesses.

We would like to inform that BSI has been working with BEIS and the Race to Zero campaign to supply 100,000 free copies of BS ISO 50005, ensuring that no matter what size an organization is, everyone can take the first step to a net zero future. Dowload your free copy in the story below.

We have two economic news articles for you this week covering the latest data from the UK and Europe respectively. In the UK article, we cover the latest figures for manufacturing output, GDP and productivity while grappling with the impact of the revisions to the ONS data as a result of their annual rebasing exercise – in some cases, the word “revision” is really stretched to the greatest extent of its meaning! None of the latest output data makes really great reading although the revisions to the history do mean that the overall picture is not quite as bad as it might otherwise have been.

The European article also covers the August industrial production data and includes a look at the latest figures on investment and profitability for the Euro-zone. We also have a brief summary of the CECIMO Annual Economic Report which, similar in concept to our own Basic facts document but in a different style, summarises the data for the European Machine Tool industry covering production, orders and trade.

We would also like to give a “final call” for our Forecast Seminar which is being held next Thursday (20th October) at Mazak’s premises in Worcester. We will have sessions covering the global economic outlook, the industrial situation and our own latest forecasts for both machine tools and cutting tools. You can get more details on timings and a registration form at https://www.mta.org.uk/event/mta-forecast-seminar-2022,

Finally, we have three surveys running for the different parts of the MTA family at the moment. The September edition of the MTA Business Survey is at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-sep22, the latest quarterly survey for EIA members has its form online at https://www.mta.org.uk/EIA-survey%20Q3-22 and, for AM-UK members, the Autumn edition of the European Additive Manufacturing Survey is at https://www.mta.org.uk/AM-trend-survey-Autumn22. With thanks to those who have already replied, we hope that you can spare a couple of minutes to respond to the project most relevant to you.

Thank you for keeping up to date with us this week. We hope you have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week with some more great stories!

SMART 6th Call

CECIMO would like to quickly notify you about an opportunity shared by our member Spanish Association AFM. They are part of the SMART program – an industry-driven EUREKA Cluster initiative in Advanced Manufacturing promoting R&D&I projects. SMART recently launched its 6th Open Call, which encourages companies to come up with some innovative projects (submitting a preliminary outline) for which […]

ECONOMIC NEWS – EUROPE

European Industrial Production, August 2022: According to Eurostat, total industrial production in the EU was +1.1% higher than in July, with an increase of +1.5% for the Euro-zone. This was not enough to reverse the falls that were recorded in July and industrial production has been varied since the post-pandemic bounce at the end of […]

ECONOMIC NEWS – UK

UK Manufacturing Output , August 2022: It is at this time of the year that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) rebases its data and although this year has not seen a change to the period (we are keeping on 2019 as the base year because of the distortions of the Covid pandemic on 2020), […]

FREE ENERGY MANAGMENT STANDARD

Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS)

The government has published details of the relief scheme for energy bills, which gives more detail on the likely value of the energy support package. It includes the daily discount rates available for business and other non-domestic energy users who are on both fixed and default/variable contracts with their energy supplier. You can find the […]

Advanced manufacturing, modernisation and training

£14 million funding for sustainable smart factory projects https://www.ukri.org/news/14-million-funding-for-sustainable-smart-factory-projects/ £14 million awarded to projects that harness digital technology to drive energy efficiency, productivity and growth across key manufacturing industries. Today, UK Research and Innovation has announced the winners of almost £14 million in combined backing from its latest funding opportunity under the Made Smarter innovation challenge, […]

Helping you tackle work-place stress

This week we celebrated World Mental Health Day, and whilst shining a light on such an important topic is essential, it’s something we should be acknowledging daily. One huge contributor to poor mental health is work-related stress. Tackling work-related stress is not only a legal requirement, but it can boost performance, reduce accidents, and improve […]

Managing Energy Costs – webinar

The GTMA is holding a webinar for manufacturers, Managing Energy Costs, on October 20th, 2-3pm. The webinar is being run with energy specialists BCR Associates. Subjects covered include options for energy contracts and renewals, minimising risk, and energy efficiency. The event is open to member firms through the EAMA alliance. Flyer with details and registration: […]

EuroBLECH 2022 – Discounted Ticket

The following link will bring you directly to the Ticket shop where the discounted price is displayed, so our members can purchase the discounted price directly. (100 Day tickets reduced from 38€ to 20€ per day tickets for the members) https://shop.euroblech.com/MBE/EUROB22/Register/EB22EIA EuroBLECH 2022 have prepared a summary text below and hope that will be helpful […]

DIT EXPORT AND IMPORT ASSISTANCE

DIT have added two new pages to their website for exporter and importers The new “Check How to Import and Export” which gives new trade information including which licences and certificates you need for your goods, paying the right VAT and duties for your goods, how to make declarations for your goods to clear the UK […]

MAKE UK Webinar

Cadet Forces Employer Engagement

Are you interested in participating in a recruitment event aimed specifically at members of the Cadet Forces? The event, which is still in the planning, will be; · On Saturday 11th February 2023 to coincide with Apprenticeship Week · Open from 1100-1500 (TBC) · At no cost to exhibiting organisations · Held on the outer […]

Friday Brief