Apexis Engineering are proud to be members of the East Midlands Manufacturing Network; being based in Derby we access the Derbyshire and Derby meetings and this summer we were on tour with the meeting being held at the National Tramway Museum in Crich.

What’s happening in the region?

Richard Blakemore, or Rick as us meeting attendees call him, always outlines what’s happening in the East Midlands region and focusses it down to the manufacturing sector.

In Q1 data showed that investment in machinery was positive for the quarter and that there’d been a 0.12% growth in the region. However this meeting Rick presented the Q2 results which were far less positive; the geographical impact on the sector has dampened confidence with pipelines; manufacturers are reporting low confidence in cash flow and profitability.

In 12 months steel prices have doubled; inflation is a major issue though it’s gone down; we’re all looking at the Gulf for pricing hits to come still. One example from an East Midlands manufacturer was that a lot of aluminium they use comes from the region which isn’t coming through currently so they are having to order lower grade material from elsewhere in the world which is impacting their product quality but with their order book they’ve had to make the call.

An update from Make UK 

From a national perspective Chris Corkan identified that long term projects investment confidence as reduced whilst manufacturers are trying to move forward on projects.

Chris highlighted that:

• Investment is still positive as evidenced by the Q1 and Q2 PMI
• Manufacturers have focused on mitigating pressures and not on growth when it’s come to investment
• Product innovation is still a focus due to Net Zero and geographical pressures
• Reshoring and near shoring has become a priority 

The MAKE UK survey highlighted that demand is still there but so is uncertainty; plus margins are being hit constantly as manufacturers have to absorb costs more than pass them on.

Competitiveness still remains a massive issue for UK manufacturers with us facing ~40% more on energy costs compared to US and EU manufacturers. 

Chris talked about how LUSH are ramping up for Christmas now at their UK manufacturing site, great news but their investment has centred around deskilling their operations in a bid to keep employment costs down to ensure they can continue to make their products in this country.

This section also covered:

• Conversations on steel; what we could and could not manufacture in this country
• AI and how only 2% of UK manufacturers have adopted in a big way but most manufacturers are piloting some form of AI to help with quality and predictive requirements.
• EMCAA is massively important for the East Midlands and will be more so under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham

An interesting part of the conversation was the new PM and whether he would recognise that the Net Zero requirements are simply putting too much pressure on manufacturers. We also discussed the public/private partnership model that Andy Burnham has pursued successfully in Manchester. Other topics covered vocational training as being important for the manufacturing sector and seeing if a shift in some of the new employment legislation would be done to support businesses.

How hard can it be to run a Museum?

That was the title of Graham Bennett’s presentation at the East Midlands Manufacturing Network summer event; he’s in his second year as CEO of the National Tramway Museum and he’s done a lot already.

The value engineering exercise caught our ears for the restoration of the trams that’s undertaken on a daily basis at the museum. With 90 first generation trams on site and more needing a home there there’s lots of plans for investment.

Some of Graham’s sayings like ‘two ears and one mouth’, ‘opportunities not problems’ and ‘the art of the possible’ where all ones we can get behind and reflect ourselves here at Apexis Engineering.

We thoroughly enjoyed the workshop talk as well, real respect from us on how the workshop was set up and run but also for how the engineers are working hard to ensure the trams are not just maintained but done so properly.