Friday Brief (05/01/2024) W1

Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! Happy New Year to you all, we hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years break!

The first story of the year is one from CECIMO. Following its Brussels Forum meeting at the start of December, CECIMO has produced a series of videos about the work of its committees; so far, we have the videos for the Economic and Technical Committees and you can find out more about these in the article below.

BSI has released a new standard with a proposal that reads: Robotics — Performance criteria and related test methods for service robots — Part 7: Travelling around humans, Check out the scope and purpose in the story below.

Join MTA Associate Member, Citation’s upcoming webinar on 10 January at 11am for a run through of all the latest employment law updates, Health and Safety Executive focuses, and how to prepare for an uncertain year. More details can be found below.

NPL have a few events scheduled for the beginning of 2024 so make sure you go to their story below to read all about them and click through to the link to register.

Join us for an exclusive webinar hosted by Croner, tailored specifically for the metalworking industry. Presented by one of Croner’s experienced Health and Safety experts, this webinar is designed to address the critical Health and Safety concerns within metalworking environments. To register please follow the link to the MTA website in the story.

This week’s economic news is mainly a catch-up on data that came out before Christmas, although we start with the manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) data published this week. This made for a gloomy end to 2023, with only 6 countries in positive territory and the majority, including the UK, seeing a further deterioration in their already weak numbers. We cover the full picture in our article this week.

The economic news article this week is where we find the data that was released just before Christmas. The UK National Accounts for the 3^rd quarter saw GDP revised down to -0.1%, raising the possibility of a recession, albeit a very slight one, for the UK economy if Q4 also turns out negative. This data release also gave us the investment figures for both manufacturing industry and its sub-set of the engineering & vehicles industries; these were both relatively muted which is not a surprise given the ending of the super-deduction allowance earlier in the year. The other element for economic news is the results of the latest CBI Industrial Trends Survey; this had a mixed picture with the overall figures not as bad as they had been, although the detailed breakdown suggests that this is not in the industries of most importance to us.

Our final article this week is the latest edition of the CECIMO Economic and Statistical Toolbox. This is also available as the CECIMO Dashboard which members can access via the MTA website; this is a more interactive reporting of the data with the facility to download the figures and charts in various ways.

Finally, the December edition of the MTA Business Survey is underway and you can access the questionnaire at www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-dec23. Also,. the separate quarterly survey for EIA members is also live and if you are in that part of our family, your survey form is at https://www.mta.org.uk/eia-quarterly-survey-4th-quarter-2023.

That concludes the first Friday Brief of 2024! We hope you have had a great start to the year and enjoy your weekends! We look forward to ‘seeing’ you again next week!

CECIMO TOOLBOX AND DASHBOARD

The latest edition of the CECIMO Toolbox was also published just before Christmas – the date refers to the fact that it mainly reflects data and information covering the 3rd quarter of 2023. The Toolbox document groups information into 6 categories covering historical data for the sector, demand, investment, the business climate, general economic indicators […]

ECONOMIC NEWS

UK National Accounts, 3rd Quarter 2023: Just before the Christmas break, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published the national accounts for the 3rd quarter. This main headline was the downgrading of the GDP data for the 3rd quarter from aero (actually negative but not by enough to see at one decimal point) to a […]

PURCHASING MANAGERS INDEX FOR MANUFACTURING

The Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing produced by J P Morgan using the data from S&P Global dropped back to 49.0 (49.3 in November), extending the run of sub-50 readings to 16 months. Both output and new orders contracted, with the fall in output concentrated in the intermediate goods sector – consumer and, […]

Croner Webinar | H&S: Metalworking Workplaces

Join us for an exclusive webinar hosted by Croner, tailored specifically for the metalworking industry . Presented by one of Croner’s experienced Health and Safety experts, this webinar is designed to address the critical Health and Safety concerns within metalworking environments. During the session, our knowledgeable speaker will delve into pertinent statistics related to metalworking […]

MMN events for 2024

16th January 3.30 Underwater acoustics challenges for measurement and calibration https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/underwater-acoustics-challenges-for-measurement-and-calibration-online-tickets-763338304417 This meeting will provide an update on the NPL services and capabilities for underwater acoustic metrology. Underwater acoustics is a key underpinning technology for offshore energy activities, is increasingly used in oceanographic and environmental studies, and also plays a crucial role in maritime defence. […]

BSI Standards

Any comments received will be submitted to the national committee AMT/10 “Robotics” for consideration when deciding the UK response to the associated Standards Development Organisation. Proposal: ISO/NP 18646-7 – Robotics — Performance criteria and related test methods for service robots — Part 7: Travelling around humans Please visit: ISO/NP 18646-7 Comment period end date: 10/02/2024 […]

How to kickstart 2024: H&S and HR updates from Citation

This year is bringing an unprecedented amount of change in the world of employment law, so it’s essential that you know what’s coming (and when!) so you can get everything in place and protect your business. And on top of that, there’s the latest Health and Safety Executive (HSE) focus areas to look out for […]

Overview of CECIMO Activity

CECIMO is the European grouping of Associations representing machine tool manufacturers, including the Additive Manufacturing sector. During their recent Brussels Forum, each Committee detailed their recent activities in a series of short videos. The Technical Committee report, delivered by Mr Favaro, Digital and Technical Policy Officer at CECIMO, covered the following topics: You can see […]

Friday Brief