We worry about UK car makers’ supplier reduction and preferred supplier initiatives excluding good companies or technology. When they go looking for help in the future, many firms may not be there to be selected, we suggest.
We also ask how important it is for a country to design and manufacture its own machine tools. In past times linked to national defence capability, that is not now the case, although a strategic manufacturing edge is imparted by domestic design and machine tool manufacture, we say. The government has made a mistake in letting it wane, we add. An interview with UK machine tool builder FMT’s managing director, Mike Bright, underscores that view.
In news and on a linked theme, the biennial EMO exhibition looms and 45 British machine tool builders will be there. Although down from 4.7% in 1974, the UK still holds 3.7% of the world market for machine tools (today it is around 1.3%) and employs 23,500. UK production in 1990 was £960 million (£2.1 billion in today’s money); in 2014 it was £607 million, but modern machines are more productive per spindle, and better manufacturing technology plus world trade holds manufactured goods’ price inflation below average inflation, it should be acknowledged.
In machine tool technology-related news: a £1 million investment in two laser profilers supplied by the UK’s Electrox (600 Group) has been made by automotive clutch specialist AP Borg & Beck; Hardinge introduces its gang-tooled GT42 CNC lathe that boasts a tool platten that can be changed in five minutes; reduced tool changeover time by using modular tooling is being promoted by Krupp Widia; India’s state-owned HMT now boasts HMT Distribution in the UK, with the promise that exports to the UK will increase; the Mori Seiki DL-20 CNC lathe with main, sub-spindle and two turrets able to support simultaneous machining at each spindle is an innovation on show at B Elliot Group company Elgar Machine Tool Co; following restructuring at German milling machine specialist Deckel AG, its UK subsidiary’s activities are subsumed within Japanese distribution company Yamazen UK, Kenilworth; and gauging specialist Marposs has opened its new £1 million-plus project engineering and demonstration facility in Coventry.
Moving to manufacturing at large and we highlight a Lords’ Select Committee report of 1985 that, put briefly, had said greater government interest in manufacturing is required and a national strategy “desirable”. Five years on, we say a similar committee concluded that measures taken have been inadequate and piece-meal, and that government should take a strategic view in areas where the country should have competitive advantage in the future, although does not ask government to pick winners. Input from the Advisory Council On Science and Technology (ACOST) should be sought, the Select Committee said, and this issue we highlight that ACOST has presented Industry Secretary Peter Lilley with recommendations aimed at reversing UK manufacturing’s decline. The left-wing Fabian society is also critical of the current free-market doctrine and has published a pamphlet, ‘Targeting competitive industries’. It is an early discussion of the ‘cluster’ theory, where companies benefiting from local supporting infrastructure help to drive regional comparative advantage.
In features, we suggest that standard PC hardware with plug-in cards for PLC and NC functions can replace proprietary CNCs;
there are already technology and examples available. In an associated article, we explain the SERCOS digital drive interface that will allow both faster and more accurate machining; this year’s EMO sees it demonstrated. Other areas covered include: a special automotive sector report; barfeed systems; just-in-time production with punch presses and pressbrakes; coolant management; and swarf recycling.
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