May 2018

NEWS 3 “This report clearly demonstrates that anyone who says that manufacturing doesn’t matter much to the UK’s economy is badly mistaken,” says MTA CEO, James Selka. “The figures that people often quote, setting manufacturing alongside the service sector, miss the point that a huge part of the service sector – from logistics, to research to catering – serves manufacturing,” he adds. “The impact is felt far outside factory gates, in offices, laboratories, shops and warehouses right across the country. “For every £1m the manufacturing sector contributes to GDP itself,” Selka points out, “it creates another £1.5m elsewhere in the UK economy, and for every direct job within the sector, another 1.8 are supported elsewhere in the UK economy. “Manufacturing creates a wealth that is irreplaceable,” he argues, “and we need to make sure that Government policies promote and grow it.” It is usually stated that the manufacturing sector contributed around £177bn to the UK’s GDP in 2016. However, if manufacturers’purchases from UK-based supply chains are included, the figure rises to £301bn (15% of GDP) and the number of jobs supported almost doubles from 2.6 to 5 million (15% of the UK total workforce). If a third factor – money spent by manufacturing employees – is added in, the total impact of manufacturing on UK GDP soars to £446bn. Another finding of the Oxford Economics study is that nearly 70% of business r&d investment during 2016 was made by the manufacturing sector. And, in the same year, manufactured goods accounted for 48% of the UK’s goods and services exports. Finally, the report reveals that productivity in the manufacturing sector is £67,000 per year (compared to a UK average of £56,700) and that the median wage in industry is £27,400 – 19% higher than the average pay-packet across the whole economy. MTA CEO Selka believes that there is an opportunity, through the Government’s Industrial Strategy, to increase productivity levels further still “and to help the UK economy grow and boost our exports by encouraging manufacturing investment to take advantage of new technologies such as big data, AI and additive manufacturing”. * The report, The True Impact of UK Manufacturing , can be downloaded from https://goo.gl/NfMDom UK manufacturing is twice as big as previously thought MANUFACTURING ACCOUNTS for nearly a quarter of the UK economy and more than 7.4 million jobs depend on it – far more than usually thought – according to new research commissioned by the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA). For the first time, the study* by the analyst Oxford Economics takes into account the full impact of the UK’s manufacturing economy, including the indirect effect of complex supply chains, and the way that manufacturing employees spend their pay. The revised figures suggest that the sector represents 23% of UK GDP – more than double the 9% figure usually cited – and is responsible for five million more jobs than the 2.6 million usually quoted. “Manufacturing creates a wealth that is irreplaceable and we need to make sure that Government policies promote and grow it” www.drivesncontrols.com May 2018 Selka: manufacturing creates irreplaceable wealth ABB IS INVESTING €100m to build an innovation and training campus at B&R Automation’s headquarters in Eggelsberg, Austria. The investment, which will create around 1,000 high-tech jobs, is ABB’s largest investment in industrial automation in its 130-year history. The 35,000m² campus will develop technologies for the factory of the future, based on ABB’s Ability platform, which allows production to be undertaken autonomously by smart and cloud-connected machines and robots. The campus is expected to start operating during 2020 As well as r&d laboratories – which will develop and test new automation technologies, from control systems to machine learning and artificial intelligence – there will be an Automation Academy to train and educate customers, partners and employees in these technologies. ABB acquired B&R Automation in July 2017. Since then it has integrated B&R into its Industrial Automation division to become its global Machine & Factory Automation business. “B&R has had an excellent start within ABB and has exceeded our expectations,” says ABB CEO, Ulrich Spiesshofer. “We are well on track to achieve our goal of revenues of more than $1bn soon. “With our €100m investment, we are strengthening this dynamic,”he continues.“In addition to the new research and development capacity, our investment will expand B&R’s Automation Academy.” ABB to invest €100m in r&d campus at B&R’s Austrian HQ