Six reasons to be cheerful

As we look around at the news today, with all the doom and gloom being shouted from the mainstream media it is sometimes hard to remember that the UK manufacturing sector is not as bad as we’re told.

Recently Julian Bond, R&D Engineering Manager for Parafix, was invited to join a panel of other leading manufacturers, large and small, to assess and discuss some surprising findings from a survey conducted by Works Management magazine. The findings appear to contradict the popular view that UK manufacturing is doomed.

As the panellists say in the article, we are neither down, nor are we out and we are a long way from either of these. The discussions arrived at six conclusions as to why UK manufacturing has cause to be cheerful.

1. Nouveau Niche – The UK does very well in its niche, advanced, value add products.  It’s not all about the High Street.
2. Don’t believe everything you read – “Doom and Gloom” sells more newspapers than positive news. Recently both Jaguar and JCB have both embarked on major infrastructure projects bringing in jobs and work to British Industry.
3. In CI we trust – those companies with robust Continuous Improvement programmes by and large are the ones reporting favourable outlooks.
4. Reverse swing – when one market is down, others are up and others are stable.
5. Built of BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China are all expanding.  Exports to these places are on the up for UK firms.
6. Wily old veterans  – UK Manufacturing has faced many Recessions in its life and ultimately survived every one.  The feeling generally is this will be no different.

For the full article (paraphrased above) please go to Works Management Magazine, January issue, found here.