News 08 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk April/May 2024 Make UK published its first quarter manufacturing outlook and revised economic forecasts recently which threw up some interesting findings. At a headline level the results were mixed, with anaemic growth forecast for the sector in the next two years in the face of a flat UK economy and weak conditions in overseas markets, especially in Europe where Germany is in recession. However, despite this, confidence levels among companies remain robust, with investment and recruitment intentions holding up. However, what was most striking is that, while the overall picture is weak, it masks stark sectoral and regional imbalances. Electronics, aerospace and food and drink are powering ahead, whilst the South East and Wales are performing substantially better than other regions and devolved Nations. This highlights that there is now a direct link between sectoral and regional performance, as electronics and food and drink are the largest and second largest sectors respectively in the South East, while Wales has a very large aerospace supply chain. According to Make UK, these imbalances for both sectors, Nations and regions are now becoming permanent, with the strong performance of manufacturing in the South East yet further evidence that levelling up is failing to address regional economic imbalances. Given the rate at which industry is accelerating its use of digital technologies the electronics sector is set to grow even faster while food and drink is the biggest manufacturing sector, accounting for 14% of total manufacturing output. With the investment in cleaner and greener aerospace travel, not to mention the current huge order books for new aircraft and a very likely increase in defence spending the aerospace sector is also likely to see continued significant growth. Wales in particular is likely to benefit from the growth in aerospace given its large supply chain and the fact manufacturing overall accounts for a fifth of the Welsh economy, the highest percentage of any UK devolved Nation or English Region. Looking forward, these imbalances are going to be a major challenge for the next Government of whatever colour as part of any industrial strategy. By MAKE UK chief executive, Stephen Phipson MAKE uk - the manufacturers’ organisation monthly news comment of the latest changes in the compressed air and vacuum industry – from legislative updates to best practice, to health and safety. In conjunction with the ongoing development of new apprenticeships, Terry will also be exploring a new coaching and mentoring course, which will be designed to help BCAS members develop apprentices to their full potential. ERIKS Industrial Services and Festo UK & Ireland are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their partnership with a host of activities that will develop the relationship further and continue to grow business for their mutual benefit. The two businesses started working with each other in the 1990s, firstly at a local level but as Paul Lynch, Chief Commercial Officer for UK & Ireland at ERIKS commented: “We wanted to become a national presence in the UK with a pneumatics offering and we wanted that brand to be Festo due to the quality of their products. Festo were looking, for the first time, at what they could achieve by embracing distribution, which wasn’t part of their DNA, and so both businesses took a leap of faith on each other and here we are 25 years later celebrating our silver wedding anniversary.” The full catalogue of Festo’s standard products is available via ERIKS with the fast-moving products stocked at their FCE (Fulfilment Centre of Expertise) in Oldbury as well as the range of configurable products. A recent area of development has been the addition of energy saving services such as compressed air audits that the two businesses are working closely on. Andy Parker-Bates, Relationship Development Manager at Festo highlighted other initiatives where the two businesses are combining their strengths: “We recently had 12 of ERIKS’ sales team take part in their P111 Fundamentals in Pneumatics training course at our Northampton facility which enables them to provide a first line of support to the customers and we also train many of ERIKS’ end users either at our HQ on at their own site.” Over the years there have been a number of firsts achieved as a result of the partnership. ERIKS was Festo’s first £1 million annual spend account in the UK and the first distributor to spend £1 million pounds annually. It was also the first EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Distributor for Festo and there has been a “Logistics revolution” according to Paul Lynch, which in the early years saw Festo products transported daily from Northampton to Halesowen and then out to the local branch network. “That was seen as cutting edge back in the day” says Paul “but now we are not reliant on a local branch network to deliver products. We have removed that obstacle from our system, and we now ship directly overnight from the FCE which is the Amazon-type experience people now expect. “Rather than unpacking boxes our local teams are now focused on helping customers solve supply chain and technical challenges. They have the time and the knowledge to understand their customers’ businesses and to solve their problems practically and quickly”. Of the future relationship, Swapnil Khedekar, Head of operations at Festo UK and Ireland said: “Distribution is a big part of our global strategy going forward, but we have some big topics ahead of us in relation to both technology change, the move away from pneumatics to electrical systems and the shift in terms of knowledge, not just for specifying the parts but also how to maintain them in the future. The work we are doing with ERIKS helps us address these topics.” Andy Parker-Bates, Relationship Development Manager added: “In pneumatics our future direction is more around intelligence, capability and the monitoring and control of compressed air. To be able to benefit from that end users need to be able to work with partners that have got those skills. Last year we had an ‘automation day’ which ERIKS attended, and this enabled them to assist customers in those areas. It’s an area we are developing together.” ERIKS & Festo celebrate partnership 25th Anniversary
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