Friday Brief Intro 20/01/2023

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! It’s been a very busy week so be sure that we have some great stories for you today!

Today let’s kick off with an update from BSI. They have a new standard waiting for comments. Any comments received will be submitted to the national committee AMT/4 “Industrial Data and manufacturing interfaces ” for consideration when deciding the UK response to the associated Standards Development Organisation. The proposal is Reference Model for Cyber-Physically Controlled Smart Machine Tool Systems (CPSMT). Please take a look at the story below for more details.

Our Associate Member, Citation, have created this beginner’s guide to stress risk assessments. If you’re struggling to get to grips with your Health & Safety, HR and Employment Law obligations, give Citation a call on 0345 844 1111. Take a look at the story below.

In the link as audited by BSI in their case study which can be viewed here you will see that BSI are making AES Engineering Ltd the poster child of their campaign to get a piece of the Net Zero auditing business. Betterworld.Solutions is a best practice sharing organisation and it is not best practice to exclude those interested in saving the environment. As of today any interested party who is willing to receive or share best practice on environmental projects will be a welcome member of Betterworld.Solutions. Take a look at more details in the story and find a like to the Betterworld.Solutions website at the bottom of the story.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) have launched a new awards scheme recognising UK SMEs trading internationally in seven sectors including manufacturing. The awards will be judged by senior officials at DIT and the Institute of Export & International Trade’s (IOET) director general Marco Forgione. Take a look at the details below.

The U.S. Army would like to invite interested entities to participate in the 2023 xTechInternational Advanced Manufacturing and Materials competition, a forum for eligible international small businesses and international academic institutions to engage with the Department of Defense, earn prize money, and potentially participate in the accelerator program. xTechInternational offers an opportunity for eligible participants to pitch novel technology solutions directly to the DoD. Find out more about the opportunity below.

Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA, has prepared an extensive note following the publication of the Skidmore Review of the government’s net zero strategy. Please take a look at the article below for more information.

Having missed last week for technical reasons, there is a bumper bundle of economic news this week so we have split it into UK and Europe/USA sections for ease of reading. In the UK article, we cover the monthly output data for November and the GDP estimate that comes alongside that release. Overall, although there was a surprising but small increase in GDP, the manufacturing output data makes fairly gloomy reading, albeit with one or two brights spots which we explore in the article below.

Outside of the UK, we cover the European industrial production data for November, the European Commission’s latest Economic Sentiment Index and the November market data for machine tools and cutting tools in the USA. Please take a look at both articles below and remember that you can always go back and check for the latest data release in our archive of economic news articles from the Friday Brief which is on our website at https://www.mta.org.uk/members-area/resources/economic-news.

Finally, the December edition of the MTA Business Survey is closing today, although it will probably be Monday before the report is completed so there is just time for any very last minute inputs which you can send via the online questionnaire at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-dec22. The separate quarterly survey for EIA members is also active and if you are in that part of our family, your survey form is at https://www.mta.org.uk/EIA-survey%20Q4-22 – this will be closing later next week.

That’s all the stories we have for this week! We hope you enjoy and have a lovely weekend! We’ll ‘see’ you again next week!

ECONOMIC NEWS – EUROPE & USA

European Industrial Production, November 2022: Total industrial production (IP) in the EU was +0.9% higher than in October 2022, with an increase of +1.0% for the subset of the Euro-zone countries. However, this follows a significant decrease in October which has not been recovered in November. Compared to November 2021, total IP grew by +2.0% […]

ECONOMIC NEWS – UK

UK Industrial Production, November 2022: At the end of last week, just after we had to close the Friday Brief, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the penultimate set of data for manufacturing output for 2022 with the figures for November. The headline figure showed a fall of -0.5% compared to October but we […]

Skidmore Review of net Zero Strategy

Jack Semple, Secretary of EAMA (of which MTA is a member) has compiled an analysis of the Skidmore review of the government’s net zero strategy that was released in 2021. This was commissioned during the short Truss premiership and undertaken by former energy minister, Chris Skidmore MP. There has been a wide range of responses […]

US Army opportunity for AM-UK Members

MADE IN THE UK, SOLD TO THE WORLD AWARDS SCHEME

Betterworld.Solutions

Blue Monday: Help your members support their people

With Blue Monday just gone by, why not discover how to beat the post-festive slump, shake off the winter blues, and help reduce stress in your workplace. Tackling work-related stress should be something you do every day, not only is it a legal requirement, but it can also boost performance, reduce accidents, and improve attendance. […]

BSI Standards Update

Please be advised that a New Work Item Proposal has been loaded to the BSI Standards Development Portal for comment. Any comments received will be submitted to the national committee AMT/4 “Industrial Data and manufacturing interfaces ” for consideration when deciding the UK response to the associated Standards Development Organisation. Proposal: ISO/NP 23704-4 Reference Model […]

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