The MTA team, led by president Bob Hunt and director general Graham Dewhurst, continue to pursue a positive agenda - representing manufacturing technologies, and delivering value to members.

MTA president Bob Hunt has been an engineer for the whole of his working life. However, he says that he is constantly amazed by what modern machine tools can achieve on complexity, tolerances, quality, finish and consistency - perhaps best exemplified by the medical devices market with which he is directly engaged through his company.

Bob Hunt says: 'It’s that type of work that’s making our country a world leader, and I want to see more of it. It’s about adding value for customers who are interested in reliability of the part, guaranteed ontime delivery, and whether it will do the job  - with price way down the list of priorities. That’s where the UK wants to be, and I think we are heading there in normal trading conditions - but these are far from normal.'

Director General Graham Dewhurst reinforces Bob Hunt’s remarks, having recently met with representatives of other machine tool supplier/user countries. He says: 'The Japanese machine tool industry is 85% down on last year. Germany about 70%, Switzerland USA and Spain are similar; so they are all a long way off where they were last year. And they are all saying the same things: that the medical and aerospace sectors are holding up, but that automotive is down.'

Evidently even sales of consumables are down, and Hunt points to the experience of cutting tool suppliers: 'Where people used to buy a pack of say 20 inserts, they are now asking if a pack can be split and just ordering ten.' Most suppliers can in any case offer 24 hour delivery, and machine shops, he suggests, are going through the process of tracking down all the  unused inserts which tend to accumulate in cupboards and under workbenches before ordering.

This is perhaps a facet of the destocking culture which takes hold during an economic downturn. (In fact Hunt is surprised that automotive companies haven’t joined in by introducing massive reductions to move their stock of finished vehicles: 'As I said in my speech at the MTA dinner, it will be more difficult to sell a machine tool with a 2008 plate on it in 2010 -  and it’s going to be a major problem with cars that have been sitting in a field.')

Nevertheless, in some markets, we may have reached the end of this part of the cycle, he suggests. 'The medical sector has been destocking since the third quarter of last year, and there is demand,  but people are still nervous about investing. Across our own (ie Star) customer base, 40% are reasonably busy - but have absolutely no vision as to what they are going to be doing next week or  next month.' He’s clearly very confident that this sector will recover fully because there’s so much 'one-shot' use - including sophisticated components which are scrapped immediately after use because of contamination.

So, in this time of economic uncertainty, has the MTA agenda changed? Hunt believes it’s useful to focus on training, where the priorities have changed: 'At our steering committee meeting in March, everyone was  suggesting the same thing - that it’s better right now to retain existing skills  rather than retrain; companies are fighting to keep the skills they have employed.' Also, says Dewhurst: 'Where you may have had to take some difficult decisions and let people go you may then have to cross-skill the remaining people.'

According to trainers there’s never been  a better time - if you’re not too busy - to train people, says Hunt. 'But if that has a cost, it might be one you don’t want to bear at present. So we’ve asked SEMTA (the sector skills council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies) if they can look at this. The problem is that they are not the custodians of the purse and have to go through a set of procedures to request release of funding (ie from government). If they are saying the money is now needed for retaining rather than training, it could be another 12-18 months before the decision can be changed; but they are aware of the problem.'

So are individual companies addressing these issues? Hunt says: 'Yes, certainly and they’ve taken advantage of grants through the MTA education and training committee. But now it’s about companies having enough work to retain staff - not to lose them from the industry and then find in 2011 that they have to start on the cycle again. That’s why we are so keen to get an understanding from government on short time working support. We think it’s better if they can provide some small assistance for a couple of days a week and let the company engage the staff for the other three, keeping them on the company payroll. We’ve got the skills base here, and we are leading in world markets. Yet if we are not careful those skills will walk out the door, and if people find other jobs they won’t come back into the industry in the good times.'

Going back a stage further into the whole business of training engineers of the future and inspiring youngsters to come into manufacturing in the first place, what’s the relationship between MTA and the education sector? Dewhurst says: 'We are quite involved in the Imagineering setup and many of our members are heavily involved with local secondary schools. The problem is actually teaching the teachers. We had a programme at MACH2008 where we launched this; in terms of the formal programme uptake was poor - it takes a lot of effort to leave the school and come to the show to learn about engineering. However, on an individual basis, over 200 teachers came to the show - and we are going to do it again. Teachers and pupils need to know what’s available, and at the moment they don’t.'

Hunt adds: 'But it needs to be driven from the top. Star GB works with a school in Derbyshire; and it was very apparent when we started working with them three years ago, that when the teachers first came along they had absolutely no concept of what our equipment could do. So there you’ve got a teacher who has no idea about what’s happening in JCB, Toyota, Rolls Royce - and you’re at a disadvantage right away. Is that teacher likely to promote manufacturing as a way for the students to go? I would suggest not.'

Nevertheless, the exercise went well, with sixteen students eventually producing components on their machines. However, the follow-up from the school was disappointing. 'The headmaster thanked us but didn’t actually take the time to see where the pupils were going, what they were learning, what they were doing; so there was no drive, no enthusiasm, and nothing filtered down.' The most positive response, he says, was to ask for a couple of work placements. 'And we told them we don’t do it that way; we want to see the student contacting us, not the teacher ticking a box. And the easy answer when someone phones up about a work placement is simply to say you’re too busy - but we’ve got to encourage them.'

There’s clearly still a big image problem for manufacturing, and we return to the fundamental need for government support and  a greater perception of how critical it is. MTA has lines of communication with both major political parties, and whatever the expectations as to who will form the next government, must remain politically impartial.

 Dewhurst explains: 'We’ve had a good relationship for some years now with the conservative business team.' He believes that rather than getting close to high profile individuals, the important thing is feed ideas into the team: 'We’ve asked whether they would adopt the government’s white paper on manufacturing. They’ve said the ideas are good but they would deliver in a different way. The Labour party is working on the RDAs and will continue; the Conservatives have a different view.'

But the Association has to tread carefully. Dewhurst observes: 'We are apolitical, we just want to get a good deal for manufacturing and engineering within the UK - that’s our main driver. Whoever we do it with, we just want them to realise that a strong industrial base is an important part of the economy. One of the big problems is the short termism of successive governments - they all have a horizon of five years.' What this means is that for two years they are looking at their re-election prospects. 'That is not good for an industrial nation. We really need someone to be looking forward 10, 20 years and deciding what we want our industrial landscape to look like and explaining how we are going to pull together - education, businesses, the banks.'

He also suspects if the banks recover, the government will fall back to basing the economy on that sector: 'I don’t think there’s any doubt about it - it’s an easier rout than having a long term view on an industrial economy.’ So, how much does the government really cherish UK manufacturing? And how well will the UK do in pursuing business opportunities in growing markets such as power generation - on particular new nuclear build? We know that 70% of the work can be done in the UK’ says Dewhurst; ‘but who will place the contracts -  and who will make sure that UK companies get a good bite at it?'

Looking at the broader concept of UK plc, how much enthusiasm is there among UK firms for collaboration? Hunt says: 'I think that the networking opportunities that associations such as ours provide for our members are vital. And for example whilst I don’t tell Geoff Bryant what my competitive edge is over him and he doesn’t tell me, we exchange views about what’s going on in our industry. So there is a lot of co-operation between companies - but you can only go so far. However, that’s a lot further now than it used to be; some of the conversations you can have today you wouldn’t have dreamed of ten years ago. Then you stood on your own; now we need each other.'

And is membership still developing and expanding? Graham Dewhurst says: 'We are now at 272 members. We have had a good increase in the past year, and we have just changed our statutes so that we can embrace more people who apply our technology, and that’s our target for the next year. Clearly we are concerned about the state of the economy, and the impact that could have on our membership. But we’re actively going out to members and demonstrating that they are getting value for money.'

Bob Hunt continues: 'Whilst our membership may not be very large, we are representatives of the manufacturing technologies. The restructuring is key to this and a lot of work has been done over the past six months. We now feel very confident as a board, as an executive council, as custodians of the management of the MTA, that we have the structure right.'

Which companies would MTA really like to get on board? He says: 'We’d like some of the big hitters but the reality is that may be some time away. Where we are making inroads is with some of the smaller companies.' He means the kind of companies that machine tool suppliers might service. 'The little guy up in Mansfield who’s struggling with all the political issues; we are looking at what we can deliver to him that makes it worthwhile being an MTA member. Whether it’s training, MACH, some form of export guidance through UKTI - he needs to know that when he phones us he’s going to get attention and valuable information.'

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