Nearly half of young people pursuing careers in manufacturing chose this path because of the influence of their school or an employer, with a similar number saying a family member was key to the decision, according to a Made Here Now study. [This article, followed by others in the series, was published in Made Here Now on April 20 2021. The website has since closed.] 

In a survey of 107 young people working at manufacturing-related companies, 28 per cent say teachers and careers advisers at school played a crucial role, with 26 per cent citing the role of a company, for example via a factory “open day”. Allowing for those who named both sets of interactions, the total identifying at least one comes to 48 per cent.

The picture above shows  (left to right) three of the people who took part in the survey: Shannon Williams, Avese Umar and Grace Ikin, who all benefited from development programmes for young employees at HMG, a family-owned paints manufacturer in Manchester.

Juergen Maier: “The truth is as a country we love academic routes more than we do vocational ones and whilst there has been a small shift it is not enough”

Another in the study influenced by a company’s efforts to engage with the world of education was Vicki May, a 29-year-old account manager at 3T-AM, a 3D printing business. She is pictured above. Her decision to apply for a job there hinged on a one-year placement at the company while studying product design at Bournemouth University.

“During my year out I was impressed by what I saw. I learned a lot about the real world, as well as about the techniques involved with 3D printing,” she said.

In one key result from the survey, 17 per cent of participants cited the positive impact of one or more schoolteacher. Many of these teachers were in design and technology, an area of tuition which in state schools has been cut back in recent years due to curriculum changes.

Hannah Petrie, learning and development co-ordinator at the James Walker engineering company, said the “enthusiasm” of teachers was “undoubtedly the most important factor in students selecting engineering-based subjects at school”.

According to Maier, the research should lend weight to arguments about the need to reverse the cuts in design and technology teaching, while also pushing more schools to promote technical and apprenticeship educational routes as an equally valuable counterpart to studying academic subjects.

Jon Stark, chief executive of Peratech, a maker of advanced sensors in Yorkshire, said the study highlighted the potential role for employers and education establishments to “do more to drive home how [manufacturing and engineering] jobs can provide challenges and opportunities plus a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment”.

Several people who took part in the survey pointed to multiple influences as affecting their career decisions. Sophie McIlveen, 24, an engineer at Belfast-based Axial3D, which makes surgical models, says she was encouraged to learn about engineering by her mother, who worked in a components factory.

Others said they had known for years what sort of job they wanted to do, due to the inspiration of a family member. Gabriela Grigorita, a mechanical systems engineer from Romania, who works at the Griffon Hoverwork hovercraft manufacturer, said: “My father is an electrical engineer and has been a key influence. Engineering seemed to come naturally to me. For a long time I’ve felt a passion for maths and physics.”

Many manufacturers that have entrenched links with local schools have found the connections pay off in commercial terms, through the recruitment of people who may go on to senior jobs. Jonathan Falder, director of Manchester paints maker HMG said: “It is important that businesses in manufacturing visit schools to talk about how exciting and diverse their businesses are and the positive impact they make.”

While HMG thinks this as a good way to gain new young employees, it supports them through their careers with learning programmes aimed at developing future senior managers. “Six out of our seven board directors have come through the company in this way,” Falder said.

Of the people in the survey, 61 per cent are graduates and 36 per cent have done an apprenticeship, with 23 per cent having studied at post-graduate level and 13 per cent having either other qualifications, or none.

Engineering accounts for 60 per cent of all undergraduate degrees, followed by design (12 per cent) and engineering and design (5 cent) and with science subjects accounting for 17 per cent. Where individuals are still involved with training and education, they are counted in the study as having the qualification already.

Of the sample total, who work in 21 industrial sectors, just under a third are in a job related to production and planning, with a similar number involved with development and design. Slightly more than one in five work in technical operations including assembly or machining, and 9 per cent are in management, while sales, finance and administration accounts for 6 per cent. One in 10 of those in the survey were born outside Britain.

Efforts to attract more young people into manufacturing and engineering continue to fall short of what is needed to arrest skills shortages, say academic specialists, following a Made Here Now study of how people move into these careers. [This article was published in Made Here Now on June 15 2021.] 

The  research examines the career paths of 107 young men and women working for 76 UK manufacturers. It provides insights into key influences including family relationships, advice from teachers and employer outreach, including school events, work-based learning and factory open days.

According to a 2020 Department for Education report, 36 per cent of job vacancies in manufacturing were related to skills shortages, the highest figure for any part of the economy apart from construction. The equivalent figure two years earlier in a previous DfE survey was 29 per cent.

The lobbying group EngineeringUK – which looks at engineering across many sectors including manufacturing – has published research indicating that skills shortages are likely to lead to at least 100,000 unfilled vacancies per year in engineering-related positions up to 2024.

Rhys Morgan, head of education at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: “It is fair to say collectively that we have not moved the dial any great distance [in attempts to make engineering more attractive to young people] despite all the efforts over the past 20 years. Much of this has been because providers [in education and industry] have never really tested how effective or impactful their programmes to encourage young people into engineering have been.”

Philip Greenish, chair of the governing council at Southampton University and a former chief executive at the academy, said that while he now never hears “ignorant comments about engineering as I used to from some supposedly educated people”, he worries that the underlying “structural issues” holding back numbers going into manufacturing and engineering remain “pretty much as bad as ever”.

Discussing the influences highlighted in the survey that were likely to inspire young people to choose engineering and manufacturing, Johnny Rich, chief executive of the Engineering Professors’ Council, said planned interventions to boost numbers should be “long-term and sustained” rather than “fleeting and momentary”. Rich added: “Short-term interventions are pointless. This is like giving people a springboard without a swimming pool.”

James Kinsella, pictured above, is a director at Bluetree, a print supplier and face mask manufacturer in Yorkshire. He said the study was a reminder to employers about the need to “build an exposure” with young people, while Lizzie Crowley, senior skills policy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said: “The research backs up existing literature on the influence of educators, parents and employers on career decisions and choices made by young people.”

Of the 107 people in the Made Here Now survey, 28 per cent say teachers and careers advisers at school played a crucial role in promoting the idea of working in manufacturing with 26 per cent citing the role of a company, for example via a factory “open day”. Allowing for those who named both sets of interactions, the total identifying at least one comes to 48 per cent.

In addition, 45 per cent of the sample say a family member – such as a parent working in engineering or production – influenced their decision to seek a job in manufacturing.

The Made Here Now research involved interviews with people aged between 20 and 32 working in sectors from aerospace to mattress manufacturing. Of the sample, 65 did an undergraduate degree, with 39 studying engineering, 11 taking a science subject and another 11 degrees involving design, sometimes combined with engineering. Of the cohort, 22 have a postgraduate degree and 38 were apprentices.

The study features several people who faced tough challenges as they moved into manufacturing. While Shrouk El-Attar was “fascinated” by engineering and electronics during her schooldays in Egypt, her life took a negative turn when her family was forced to flee to the UK to seek asylum.

Left to fend for herself after other family members were deported, El-Attar gained five A-levels, followed by a master’s degree at Cardiff University in electrical and electronic engineering. After a design job at the Renishaw engineering group, El-Attar works at Elvie, a Bristol company specialising in products for women such as breast pumps.

Rhuvi Wickramasingha (pictured below) says in his late teens he had “really had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life”. After learning about computerised textiles machines in a job with his aunt’s knitwear business, he says of his job as a knitting technician at Jack Masters, a Leicester clothing manufacturer: “I am in an occupation which I like, and which offers a way to use a combination of design and cognitive skills.”

Jessica Scully admits that at school she “misbehaved and didn’t give lessons proper attention – I feel I squandered my time”. She says two teachers at Washington Academy in Northeast England encouraged a shift in approach.

Scully says of Derek Austwick, now the school’s deputy-head, and Len Debbage, a technology teacher: “Mr Austwick didn’t take any of my nonsense. He told me I could achieve a lot if only I put my mind to it. And Mr Debbage would give me a cup of tea and say: ‘You might think the world’s against you but it’s not’.”

After collecting just three GCSEs, Scully says she was shocked into change. She studied aerospace engineering at college, followed by a degree in mechanical and manufacturing engineering at Teesside University. In 2017 she joined Roman Showers in Newton Aycliffe where she oversees the quality department. “It’s a lovely company with a supportive environment,” she says.

Someone else whose schooldays featured difficult moments – right at the very end – was Tom Queen, who as a boy had a great interest in computing. “As an experiment I hacked into the school’s servers. I left a note on the system saying the school should review its security procedures. Unfortunately, the school management didn’t appreciate this and kicked me out.”

But his brush with adversity did not set him back for long. Prior to his expulsion, Queen says he had been lucky to do a two-week spell of work experience in the robotics department at the University of Plymouth.

“I absolutely loved doing this. It opened my eyes to the opportunities in robotics.” Later this took him to Shadow Robot, a maker of robotic hands, where he says his job as a software engineer has “turned out brilliantly”.

As a general way to encourage more people to follow routes such as Queen’s, Johnny Rich of the Engineering Professors’ Council says schools should lower some of the barriers to learning about science at school.

He says the number of young people moving into jobs related to engineering and other technical areas would rise if more pupils were able to study “triple science” at GCSE – where they learn about biology, chemistry and physics as separate subjects – rather than being limited to just one or two of them unless they have previously performed well academically. “Every pupil, regardless of ability, should be given the chance to study science at a high level at school,” Rich said.

Brexit has badly damaged the prospects for UK manufacturing, according to a Made Here Now survey in which two-thirds of respondents said leaving the European Union had hurt their business. Just 6 per cent said the impact had been positive. [This article was first published in Made Here Now on October 31 2022.]  

The overwhelmingly negative view among manufacturers adds weight to several government and academic reports indicating that the change has weakened the UK economy and made businesses less competitive. The new poll asked 54 companies, covering most manufacturing sectors and spread around the UK, about their post-Brexit experience. The responses were dominated by private businesses, with quoted firms generally declining to respond.

Many pointed to difficulties created by the UK’s departure from the zero-tariff European Single Market, arguing that new rules on trading and product regulation had increased bureaucracy and costs.

William Cook makes high-tech steel castings in its Sheffield plant – its chairman says the EU exit has led to “border delays and recruitment difficulties”

Others said the end of free movement between the UK and EU countries had reduced their ability to recruit or retain employees from EU countries, weaking the workforce and exacerbating labour shortages. On top of Covid and the war In Ukraine, the impact of Brexit has had a chilling impact on the economic outlook, the majority believe.

Just over a quarter of the respondents were neutral on the impact of Brexit, saying either that it had made little difference or that the positives and negatives cancelled each other out. Together with the small minority saying the change had been positive, the number of “neutrals” could lend weight to the pro-Brexit suggestion that leaving the EU might result in new business opportunities further afield or trigger more “reshoring” of production in the UK.

Fashioning leather wallets and other leather goods in a factory in Walsall is the basis of a global businesses for family-owned manufacturer Ettinger

Several companies that trade heavily with Continental Europe expressed special concerns about how Brexit had made business conditions more challenging.The EU is the UK’s biggest trading partner, in 2020 accounting for 42 per cent of exports and 50 per cent of imports.

Sir Andrew Cook, chairman of William Cook, a Sheffield-based maker of castings for sectors such as oil and gas, said Brexit had “caused significant administration-related border delays and recruiting difficulties”. He added: “The European Single Market was exactly that – a single trading zone with no internal frontiers…. These features allowed this company to buy materials and sell finished products within the single market with as much ease as if it was within Yorkshire, and easily recruit the skilled labour we need from wherever in the EU it was available. This is no longer the case.”

Fired up: steel castings maker William Cook is among a large number of manufacturers exercised by what they see as the negative effects of Brexit

The UK division of Yamazaki Mazak, a large Japanese machine tool maker with a factory in Worcester, sells 85 per cent of its output to the EU. Marcus Burton, Yamazaki’s former UK chief executive who is now an adviser, said that to manage logistics it has had to “increase the number of administrative staff for import and export and our external costs have increased significantly… We have introduced more complex and bureaucratic procedures to confirm compliance with rules of origin”. The company has been “unable to identify any opportunities or benefits from Brexit”, Burton said.

The UK formally left the EU in January 2020, following the country’s narrow vote in June 2016 to quit the Europe-wide trading and political bloc, reducing its membership to 27 nations. At the end of 2020, a transition period ended and the UK left the Europe Single Market and its associated customs union, ushering in new trade rules.

Even given the dominant majority view, not everyone in the poll voiced a negative opinion of how Brexit has played out. Christopher Nieper, chairman of David Nieper, which makes women’s clothing, was one of the three people in the survey who said the change had been positive for his business.

“It’s been a catalyst for us onshoring the bulk of our supply chain… which has brought many other strategic benefits,” Nieper said. “The fear about EU staff recruitment is mis-placed. By far our best staff are locals, including supervisory and managerial – over half of our staff have been with the company for over 10 years. Recruiting from outside the country may bring instant skills but it doesn’t necessarily bring long-lasting skills and it doesn’t necessarily bring a cultural fit which is so important in manufacturing.”

Christopher Nieper, who runs Midlands clothing maker David Nieper, is among a small number of manufacturers who say the UK’s EU departure has led to benefits – including an increased incentive for the country to train skilled workers

Craig Wright, chairman of Wright Industries, a Birmingham business making specialised electronic parts, also answered “positive” on the EU departure. “Europe used the UK as a huge financial sink, now we are not there to prop it up, watch the demise, we can redeploy our resources to UK global enterprise now…Since Brexit [my company has] attracted more government and external investment and seen the opportunities skyrocket.”

One factor cited as positive by some Brexit supporters has been the slide in the value of the pound since the 2016 referendum which has helped some exporters price their goods more favourably in overseas markets, though it has also pushed up costs of imported materials and machinery. Since June 1 2016, sterling’s trade-weighted value against a basket of key currencies as measured by the Bank of England has fallen 12 per cent.

While manufacturing accounts for only about 10 per cent of the economy, the sector has a large overall impact, notably because manufacturing employees generally have higher productivity than those in other sectors and because of the important role manufacturing plays in generating overseas earnings through exports and developing skills.

The gloomy messages from the majority of people in the survey support the view from the government’s Office for Budget Responsibility that Brexit has harmed the economy.The OBR estimates that the new trading arrangements between the UK and EU, set out in the trade and co-operation agreement that took effect in January 2021, will reduce long-run productivity by 4 per cent relative to remaining in the EU, while reducing both exports and imports by some 15 per cent.

In June, the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank, said: “Brexit has damaged Britain’s competitiveness, and will make us poorer in the decade ahead.”

The manufacturing trade body MakeUK said: “There is no doubt that leaving the EU has made life much more difficult for manufacturers and there is some evidence among our own data that foreign companies with British plants are now channelling investment away from the UK… The main effort now must be to try and ensure as smooth a trading relationship as possible.”

Commenting on the survey, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said that as a result of the trade and co-operation agreement with the EU “many businesses can benefit from tariff-free trade when exporting” to the bloc, while the government’s Brexit freedoms bill would remove about £1bn worth of “needless red tape”, unlocking investment and innovation.

The Department for International Trade said: “Through our export support service and export academy, we are helping more businesses across the country seize new opportunities in the world’s fastest growing markets. Our export strategy is giving businesses the tools they need to become a nation of exporters.”

Tangled supply chains plunge many firms into “nightmare”

Stage fright: Plunge Creations which makes props and other artefacts for theatre and film production says some customers based in continental Europe have started sourcing from the EU rather than UK

The impact of Brexit on supply chains and the way post-Brexit regulations have further disrupted them have caused headaches for many manufacturers.

Inevitably, companies that do much of their business in Continental Europe report some of the worst problems, both in exporting products and services and in sourcing materials, components and semi-finished items.

Among the companies trying to work through the difficulties is Plunge Creations, which makes props and stage designs for sectors including advertising and entertainment. Sarah Mead, a director of the West Sussex company, says: “We might work with a London-based gaming company [for] which we fabricate a number of sculptures or displays that are then sent out to the EU and will tour around various gaming conferences.

“Due to the new regulations around the movement of goods, and also that our customers, and their clients, have to pay taxes on the products, they have become unaffordable. Large contracts that we regularly received are being scaled back… [Our former clients] are using creative fabrication companies in the EU instead.”

Rowan Crozier, managing director of Birmingham component manufacturer Brandauer, says: “Movement of goods over [European] borders [has been a] complete nightmare managed only by using groupage [dedicated transport where space is shared] which is three-to-six times the normal cost.”

Rowan Crozier of specialist components maker Brandauer describes Brexit as a “nightmare”

The experience of Andrew Churchill, executive chairman of JJ Churchill, is similar. The company, based in Market Bosworth near Leicester, makes turbine blades for aerospace customers. A typical blade is cast in Italy, sent to the UK for machining, transferred to Eire for coating, returned to UK for more work and then sent to Germany. Some blades require an extra stage along the way in which a special coating is added by a German contractor.

The impact of Brexit on this convoluted supply chain, Churchill says, has led to unpredictability, delays and extra cost as the blades cross multiple borders. “[We are faced with] massive complications that didn’t exist before.”

The criss-crossing of jet engine parts around European countries during different fabrication stages is a lot less feasible than when the UK was part of the European trading bloc, says Andrew Churchill, chairman of JJ Churchill

Steve Fooks, director of New Venture Models, a Kent based producer of architectural models, points to problems over both outwards and inwards deliveries. On exports, some of the couriers his company previously used refuse now to travel to Europe “as there is far too much paperwork to make it worthwhile”. Kenton Robbins, managing director of plastics packaging producer PFF, says: “Materials [from the EU] are being delayed. Suppliers are having to send them twice with two different couriers to be sure of arrival. If we want to do trials of new materials, there’s no certainty they will turn up…. It is stonkingly difficult and hugely painful.”

James Stansfield, chief executive of air-cleaning equipment producer Filtermist, counts his company as a successful exporter –the company sells to 60 nations including several in the EU, with China and the US its biggest export markets. However, even with Filtermist’s expertise in selling around the world, it has found the previously “incredibly simple” process of selling to the EU much more difficult.

Often underestimated, he says, are the challenges faced by many EU-based customers of UK companies in understanding the new rules. These difficulties, says Stansfield, add another set of impediments to trading that many outsiders have failed to appreciate.

“A lot of our EU customers haven’t got the resources to understand the new way of working. A couple of our customers have even decided to buy through a third party because they didn’t have the in-house resource to understand and deal with the extra administration. Our own export teams have been having to walk customers through the process, becoming overnight export experts to enable business to continue.”

Tony Attard, chairman of Panaz, a Lancashire maker of specialised fabrics, says Brexit has cost the company “millions of pounds in lost revenue”. Panaz has struggled to maintain relationships with European business partners and has seen European exports fall by 20 per cent.

Asked to offer his advice to the government, Attard says: “Rejoin the EU. And recognise the massive mistake. Or the UK will not recover for some years.”

Of Vitsoe’s £15m revenues in 2021, exports – to 70 countries – accounted for more than two-thirds. Adams says Brexit has made trading with both the EU and elsewhere “more difficult”. Even so, since the vote to leave the EU in 2016, Vitsoe has achieved substantial growth, with sales having increased from £6.9m in 2016, and employment rising from 60 in that year to 82.

But Adams insists that – despite his own firm’s good record – Vitsoe has withstood the negative effects both of Brexit and the Covid pandemic only because of the company’s special characteristics which have not necessarily applied to other businesses. “Brexit has been – and continues to be – an impediment to growth,” he says.

The key reasons for Vitsoe’s expansion include, according to Adams, having its supply-chain in the UK and northern Europe rather than Asia. The company has been favoured by its policy of selling directly to customers rather than being dependent on third-party retailers over which it has little control. A third factor is having had since about 2005 a digital-based ordering and production system that has made the company highly efficient.

While the US is Vitsoe’s biggest market, Adams has followed pan-European thinking for a long time. “Following the 1975 referendum [when the UK endorsed its earlier decision to join the EU in 1972] I checked into Bordeaux University during my gap-year in 1980, because I felt that ambitious Brits should learn a language decently,” says Adams. “Since my arrival at Vitsoe in 1986 we have built a business based on open European borders – for goods and people.”

But after the “leave” vote, Adams feels that much of the platform for this way of running a company has fallen away, with negative effects for many manufacturers. He recounts that in 2016 Vitsoe employed 15 nationalities, with most its employees at its HQ and manufacturing centre in Leamington Spa, with others in the US and Germany.

On the shelf: Many of Vitsoe’s European customers have reacted with “incredulity” to the UK decision to leave the economic bloc, says its managing director

Following the vote, five non-UK employees – from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Portugal – left their jobs in the UK, after “feeling less welcome [in this country]”. The fact that Vitsoe has increased its global headcount significantly is he says down to a “[recruitment] team working exceptionally hard in highly adverse condition”. Adams adds: “We have shed blood and tears to recruit, working flat out all the time.”

As for selling to the US Adams says even these shipments have suffered from Brexit-related constraints. “We have had containers delayed on arrival in the US because they are now subject to further checks [on the grounds that they] are not coming from the EU.” As another example of the new regulatory headaches, Adams mentions delays over registering the US trademark for Vitsoe products.

“[New trademark registrations] were rejected on the grounds that Vitsoe had used in evidence the existence of EU trademarks. We had to reapply using [UK-only] trademarks. Even our lawyers were surprised.”

Adams adds: “I have witnessed the incredulity shown by Europeans towards the Brexit decision. Our erosion of soft power is plain to see. We used to be respected for being the necessary thorn in the side of the EU. We are no longer that and, critically, we are no longer at the table where the important decisions are taken.”

Simon Spinks, chairman of Harrison Spinks, a Yorkshire bed and mattress maker, also laments what he sees as an ebbing away of the UK’s position as a serious political and economic player in Europe. “For me the greatest negative is around security in the very long term. Being a member of the EU binds the economies of Europe together which is a deterrent for irreconcilable disagreement.”

John Stimpson, business manager at Heathcoat Fabrics, which makes technical textiles for industries such as aerospace and automotive, perceives the negative impact of Brexit as having played out gradually, affecting the mindset of global firms with which his company previously had good relations. He lists eight reasons why Brexit has made life harder for his company, including transportation delays and higher administration costs.

Heathcoat Fabrics is a big Devon-based maker of specialised textiles – the company says some of its EU customers have started to rethink their use of UK suppliers

Once knowledge of these difficulties spread to Heathcoat’s international customers, says Stimpson, they started to think twice about placing orders with his company, on the grounds that completing the work may become harder or more expensive. “Major customers are looking for non-UK-based alternatives,” he says.

Evidence that such experiences are part of a broader picture of Brexit damaging sometimes long-standing overseas connections comes from a study at the London School of Economics’ centre for economic performance which examined trade involving 1,200 products exported from the UK to the EU.

The authors found “a sharp drop in the number of trade relationships between UK exporters and EU importers, with lower value relationships hit particularly hard. This finding is consistent with claims that the [new European trading arrangements have] caused many smaller UK firms to stop exporting to the EU”.

Heathcoat uses expert knowledge built up over decades to make textiles 

Research of this sort fits in with how Greg McDonald, chairman of component maker Goodfish, has seen Brexit play out through what amounts to a series of ripple effects – mainly psychological but with a serious long-term impact.

He feels that after the 2016 Brexit referendum many international businesses perceived – rightly or wrongly – that the UK would be a less reliable business partner. “Key international customers, from Japan and Germany in particular, stopped sending us requests to tender [for specific contracts].”

To make matters worse, other customers that were part of Japanese, German and US groups but had UK operations began shutting their plants, which led to orders being diverted from Goodfish to other countries as a result. McDonald’s company has been able to compensate at least partly through acquiring a UK-based business with a domestically focused set of customers – but nonetheless it has struggled.

The article first appeared in Made Here Now as part of a series on manufacturing after Brexit  

For Graeme Hall, the biggest difficulties over Brexit have been over the resulting changes to medical device regulations. “[We have] additional cost for zero benefit. It makes it harder for UK companies to compete and the ultimate cost will end up being paid by customers,” he says. [This article first appeared in Made Here Now.]

Hall is executive chairman and co-owner of Brandon Medical, a Leeds-based manufacturer of specialised lighting for operating theatres that employs about 80 people. Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, Brandon has had to spend heavily to comply with two sets of regulatory standards – one of which has gone through big changes while the other is in the process of being set up.

A third of Brandon’s £12m of annual sales is exported – in the past three years the company has sold equipment to 70 countries, in some cases designing bespoke lighting systems for use in specialist surgical settings. Healthcare regulation requires businesses making hospital equipment to comply with detailed rules over manufacturing and use.

Making lighting for operating theatres is a precision business – but Brexit has thrown it out of gear, says a leading manufacturer of the equipment

Until Brexit, the standards for UK companies were set in Brussels, using input from all EU member nations including the UK. Compliance with EU standards is indicated using the CE Mark, which is widely accepted globally as a basis for other countries’ own product standards.

The company’s experiences over new regulations shines a light on some of the downsides to leaving the European trading bloc

The biggest headaches, however, were over the UK’s desire to replace CE marking with its own system of regulatory labelling, using the so-called UKCA standards. While there is some overlap between the two systems, there are also important differences that require more work by Brandon to ensure the products it sells to National Health Service and other UK customers meet the new UK standards.

To complicate matters further, when Brandon sells to the EU, it must appoint an “authorised representative” based in the EU country in question to check, among other things, that the correct CE marking has been used. “There’s obviously a fee for this,” Hall observes.

Brandon employs 80 people, mainly at its Leeds factory

He sums up: “We now must maintain two [the UK and EU] regulatory marking systems, adding up to a huge volume of documentation. This is a significant overhead as all the product labelling, packaging, instructions for use and regulatory texts must be [kept updated]…Going forward, we expect that some countries will not recognise UKCA and we will have to maintain CE marking as well in order to export.”

The 85-year-old Hancock – who started his business 50 years ago, just before the UK joined the EU in 1973 – says his experience in coping with numerous recessions and political changes has helped Bowman International adapt to the new environment. He says Brexit encouraged him to refocus on two key points – developing good products and selling them to the world, especially North America.

“A lot of our products aren’t necessarily any better than our competitors, but we go all out to market them,” says Hancock. His view that quitting the political and economic union has helped his company runs contrary to the majority opinion of industrialists who took part in the Made Here Now Brexit survey

Paul Hancock, Bowman’s chairman, says criticism of Brexit shows “how negative and non-aggressive some of our industries are”However, the business veteran has little time for those who argue that the change has been damaging. “[This] shows how negative and non-aggressive some of our industries are,” he says. “They seem to think that business will walk in the door. We diverted a lot of time, effort and cost to covering the US and Canada and it’s paying off. We are also looking for business by replacing imports, especially after all the supply chain difficulties over the last two years.”

The industrial bearings market is extremely competitive and is dominated by global giants including SKF of Sweden, Germany’s Schaeffler and Timken of the US. However, Hancock’s company has won business partly through focusing on specialist niches such as bearings used in wind turbines that are easier to maintain and replace than their rivals. It has also benefited from the weakness of sterling against other major currencies. Since the UK voted to leave the EU in mind-2016, the pound has fallen 22 per cent against the dollar and 10 per cent against the euro.

Bowman has increased sales to £10.6m in the year to September 2022, up from £9.4m in 2020/21 and £8.25m in the previous year. Hancock reckons sales could grow to £15m – £20m within three years. Exports – close to zero 15 years ago – climbed to 27 per cent of revenues in 2021/22 and could rise soon to up to 50 per cent.

Industrial bearings are key parts inside many types of heavy machinesOf Bowman’s £3m of exports in the company’s last financial year, half went to the EU and £1m to the US. Hancock believes US revenues could reach almost £3m in the coming year.

“We opened our own office in the US near Chicago, and we have secured $1m of business so far with a lot more lined up. The new products are attracting a lot of attention,” he says.

“Some smaller [UK] companies who rely totally on imports and/or exports with the EU will be hurt, so diversification is the name of the game.”

While putting a greater emphasis on North America, Bowman also shut its office and warehouse in Germany, saving money. “We still view exporting to Germany as important. While in the past couple of years we have lost some business in Germany, cutting our internal presence in the country has meant the sales we are now making there are more profitable.”

Bowman’s boss reckons employment could increase significantly on the back of healthy demandOne underlying reason for the company’s relative success, Hancock believes, is that it is “run by technical people, not accountants”.

Explaining this, he says Bowman routinely keeps in stock up to 7,000 families of bearings made both by itself and other suppliers. “If customers want a specific type of bearing, the chances are we can sell to them immediately, rather than wait for it to be made or come into our warehouse. We don’t have a problem in keeping stock numbers high.”

Hitting pay dirt: a move to shift focus to US sales has worked out for the Oxfordshire companyBeing privately owned, Bowman does not have to worry about outside shareholders scrutinising its accounts and complaining about things they dislike. Most publicly quoted manufacturing businesses are wary about maintaining high levels of “work in progress” such as warehouse stocks, on the grounds that financiers may view this as an inefficient use of capital.

Bowman employs just 43 people, but he reckons this could expand greatly if sales rise as he hopes. Another factor that could affect employment is that the company wants to start making some of the products it currently buys in, particularly goods from China. “I am hell-bent on bringing back production from China and I feel confident we can do it,” he says.

Keeping the wheels turning: without bearings most agricultural equipment would grind to a haltOn the back of such plans, Hancock suggests Bowman’s workforce could rise to 100-200 in the next three years, on the assumption that the company could finance expansion through bank loans or similar and find enough skilled people.

The company has invested heavily in high-performance 3D printing machines from Hewlett-Packard in the US. Components made using these machines are used internally and sold externally, providing useful revenue to supplement bearing sales. “The 3D printing business is going berserk,” Hancock says.

The article first appeared in Made Here Now as part of a series on manufacturing after Brexit  

Rui Tenreiro, senior partner and UK director at Kaizen Institute, one of the world’s biggest manufacturing consultancies, said the difficulties many UK manufacturers had experienced since the UK’s vote in 2016 to leave the European Union had boosted his business’s own growth plans.

“In this environment, perhaps paradoxically, we’ve done well. Some clients like to call us in precisely because they are struggling. In these situations we can help them improve efficiency and quality.”

Tenreiro said that for most UK manufacturers “the disadvantages [from Brexit] outweigh the positives”. He added: “Our [UK] customers have encountered a range of supply chain problems and extra paperwork. The ending of free movement for EU citizens makes it harder for companies to find employees.”

His comments followed the publication by Made Here Now of a survey of manufacturers, which revealed a widespread view that Brexit has dealt a big blow to UK industry. Two-thirds of the 54 manufacturers in the poll said Brexit has had a negative impact on their operations, with only 6 per cent viewing it as positive. For 28%, Brexit’s overall effect on their business was neutral.

Many manufacturers are struggling but can be helped to improve through Japanese-style management techniques, says Kaizen InstituteBrexit challenges had given Kaizen Institute a platform to encourage UK clients “to improve their business [from both a] growth and operational perspective”, said Tenreiro. As a result the institute – a Made Here Now sponsor since 2020 – had increased its UK revenues and doubled its UK consultants in the past two years. Kaizen Institute has a global team of 300 consultants, just 20 of them in the UK. It works in 60 countries with an approach based around Japanese-style “continuous improvement” and lean production, as well as putting employees at the centre of efforts to design new working practices.

However, despite Tenreiro’s desire to boost revenues, working with businesses that are struggling “is not what we’d choose”.

A mix of new equipment and ideas is often required to boost competitive performance“We’ve found that when customers implement new ideas, they get better results when they do it from a place of strength rather than weakness. In our client base we have some big success stories. Our aim always is to work with these businesses long-term to turn a good position into a better one.”

Tenreiro – a citizen of Portugal where he lives – says Brexit has harmed his employer’s own ability to recruit. “The restrictions on where EU nationals can live has been negative for Kaizen’s own recruitment efforts, as we seek to build our UK presence. Many people from the EU like the idea of living and working in the UK. Their plan often would be to stay a few years and then move on [to other parts of Europe]. They can’t do this so easily now. We’ve found this hinders our ability to find the individuals we need.

“For myself, due to visa issues, I’m not allowed to work properly in the UK. I can manage the business with short visits and train the team, but I cannot deliver continuous workshops as before. It’s another disruption that doesn’t help.”

Kaizen Institute does not divulge revenues but says its billings from UK customers expanded 50 per cent between 2020 and 2021 and are on course to rise by a similar amount this year. Of its UK clients, 80 per cent are in manufacturing. Among its customers in the UK are chocolate producer and retailer Hotel Chocolat; Becton Dickinson, which makes medical equipment; steelmaker Celsa; McBride, which manufactures cleaning products; and Bucher Municipal, a maker of municipal street cleaning vehicles.

A brighter future may be ahead, despite Brexit-induced challenges, according to Kaizen’s UK head. Photo by Rob Wilkins/Croft FiltersIrrespective of the Brexit impact, Tenreiro sees opportunities for Kaizen in the UK. “I think the country has many manufacturers with a good potential to grow and which can be helped by the sort of practical consulting services we offer.”

The institute is based in Switzerland and is owned by Masaaki Imai – the Japanese production expert who founded it in 1985 – and his family. Kaizen Institute entered the British market in 1991.

With 350 employees, mainly in the UK, increasing from 260 prior to the UK’s departure from the union in 2020. Wright’s holding company has just one director – himself – and both published contact numbers for the business in London and Birmingham connect to his mobile phone.

Individual companies in the group are run by seasoned executives who Wright trusts to get results. “[It’s] not your conventional model but it works,” says Wright who set up his holding company in 2011 after previously running and owning Exception Group, another specialised electronics business based in Wiltshire.

In his views about Brexit, Wright – who likes to adopts a low profile and does not court publicity – is a relatively lonely voice among UK manufacturers. In a Made Here Now survey from last year, of the 54 manufacturing executives, only three – including Wright – said the EU departure had had a positive impact on their companies. Of the total, two thirds said Brexit had harmed their enterprises, due to factors such as higher costs and more complex supply chains. The rest took a neutral stance, citing a mix of good and bad outcomes.

The overwhelmingly negative view in the survey echoed other polls of businesspeople and reinforced government and academic reports indicating that the UK’s leaving the trading bloc had weakened the economy.

While Wright does not deny that some businesses feel Brexit has been negative, he believes that many manufacturing bosses are too ready to blame the change for a range of setbacks. “Brexit was always going to involve [initial] costs,” he says. “But I think a lot of commentators are confusing the impact of the EU departure with the economic problems caused by other factors including the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine. The world economy is being affected by several challenges of which Brexit is one.”

Companies in Wright’s group use the umbrella brand Connexion Technologies and include Custom Interconnect, Accura Engineering, Pure Electronics and Castle Microwave. The main production and development bases are in Wolverhampton, Andover, Newbury and Chippenham, with other operations in east Asia.

Wright reckons that more job opportunities within his companies will arise in the future as they expand on the back of strong order inquiries and a £15m capital investment programme. Among the new projects is a £10m plant in Andover to package semiconductor devices using novel materials for electronic substrates such as silicon carbide, designed to cut energy use.

Wright says this will be the first factory of this type in the UK, as semiconductor packaging – a key step in electronics manufacturing in which the finished microchip is put inside a protective casing – is usually done in east Asia.

While the number of big UK electronics and electrical goods manufacturers has fallen sharply in the past 30 years, the sector continues to be represented by smaller enterprises making specialised items.
Supporting his view that his companies’ turnover could double in the next two years, Wright says Brexit, rather than being a source of problems, may already be having some positive effects. “Brexit is one of several factors – the others including Covid and the war in Ukraine – encouraging global companies to look more closely at countries such as the UK, with its great engineering strengths, as a place for technology development and production.”He claims also that leaving the trading bloc has made UK government bodies keener to provide financial support to UK businesses developing new technologies that promise more wealth and jobs:“In my experience of UK manufacturing – and I’ve operated companies through four recessions with a fifth one apparently being on the way – prior to Brexit I’ve received no government support for any of my businesses. However, since Brexit I’ve been encouraged by the government approach towards technology assistance.”Wright gives as an example his company’s relationship with the Advanced Propulsion Centre, a government/industry research and development organisation based in Coventry. The centre’s main role is to help the automotive industry move to low-carbon propulsion, for instance through electric or hydrogen-powered vehicles. In partnership with the centre – together with two UK innovation agencies, Warwick Manufacturing Group (part of the University of Warwick) and the government’s InnovateUK – Wright Industries is taking part in a £12m development programme into advanced electronic control equipment with roughly half the costs coming from the government.

“The products likely to emerge from the project have applications in a range of industries that use electric power including not just cars but data centres and aircraft,” Wright says. “The support is enabling us to stay at the forefront of a technology [electronics control] to which many big businesses around the world are paying a lot of attention.”

Overall, Wright has a bullish stance on the future for UK manufacturing: “Nobody nowadays is doing what they did a few years ago and discussing closing plants in countries such and UK, in favour of opening new ones in China.” But he says more needs to be done to ensure that components such as those made by his group are used in assembly operations in factories based in the UK rather than in other countries.

“Mainly the items we [Wright Industries] make are bought by non-UK companies. They finish up being assembled with other components in overseas factories. Where the UK needs to do a lot better is in making it less necessary to transfer such parts to other countries to put them to use. We need to do more to keep manufacturing in the UK.”