If anything good came out of the infamous recession of 2008/9 it was the fact that the UK Government had to recognise that successful economies cannot be sustained through the financial sector buying and selling debt at artificial libor rates without actually manufacturing anything tangible.
History has repeatedly shown that successful economies make, sell and buy products and post-recession, as the financial sector wallowed in a mire of negative public opinion and desperate attempts to convince us that they were going back to a more caring, responsible form of ‘Captain Mannering’ banking, Government was searching for a new life-boat to which it could attach its policy line. It found it, thank goodness, in a renewed interest in UK Manufacturing.
Not since the nineteen sixties has manufacturing enjoyed such a positive press. At long last we are once again being recognised for being world leaders when it comes to innovation. Government has recognised that a huge proportion of UK GDP is generated by SMEs, with the emphasis upon the ‘S’ and grants for such companies abound to the extent that we struggle to stay abreast of them.
The Government’s new initiatives to increase the number of UK companies exporting is to be applauded – we were once the world’s greatest trading nation, whilst efforts to encourage young people to move into the technical disciplines of Engineering and Science are at their highest for fifty years.
Even the economic power houses of China and the other BRIC nations are beginning to slow as they aspire to Western quality standards and their overheads begin to emulate those of their competitors. Consequently, we are actually beginning to see an element of re-shoring.
The BFPA quarterly statistics certainly demonstrate that the Hydraulics and Pneumatics sector are very much party to the current economic recovery with our members reporting very encouraging figures both to-date and in their future forecasts.
However, this renaissance is not simply a rebirth of old nineteen sixties manufacturing ethos. Today’s resurgence is based upon a different set of drivers. This ‘industrial-revolution’, (if we might be forgiven for describing it as such), won’t be characterised by smoking chimneys and ear-deafening assembly lines employing thousands of relatively low-skilled workers.
Environmental pressures are forcing manufacturers to adopt cleaner, quieter technology not least of all in our own sector through the development of quieter hydraulic components such as external gear pumps. Companies are routinely embracing lean engineering to reduce waste in every aspect of their activities.
The role played by automation and robotics in modern facilities is finally being recognised and new facilities operating with a minimum of staff, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week whilst consuming less energy and operating in lights-out conditions are more and more common place (although the UK has much to do in this area if it is to catch up with its major international competitors).
Additive manufacturing and three dimensional printing, whilst still in its infancy is developing at an astonishing rate. In other words, this manufacturing renaissance is fuelled by smart use of new technology both in our own sector and across the rest of the manufacturing landscape.
Success is being achieved, not by high volume, low margin production philosophies but by high levels of technological differentiation and higher, more respectable margins often realised through efficiency savings and lower overheads rather than simply aggressive pricing strategies.
This renewed emphasis upon technology has made the all-important debate around skills and training even more pertinent. In recent surveys among trade association members in the engineering and manufacturing sector the single largest obstacle to business growth since 2006 wasn’t the emergence of the low overhead economies. It wasn’t the cost of energy or raw materials. It wasn’t the disproportionate levels of tax on fuel. It was a lack of suitably qualified employees with a desire to work in the sector and a good work ethic.
If it was ever the case that a strong education system, operating to global academic standards, was fundamental to a successful manufacturing economy then it is certainly the case now. The technology that is underpinning the current manufacturing boom requires a pipeline of appropriately qualified employees and at the moment it would appear to be lacking.
So how did we come to find ourselves in this position? The answer, at least in part, is due to politicisation of the education system by successive governments and academics seeking to over intellectualise the basic principles that form the bed-rock of a good technical education. I.e. the pipeline of young people seeking a career in manufacturing.
It started in the late sixties and early seventies with the recognition that mathematics was not necessarily the easiest of subjects so ‘government pundits’ decided that ‘education by discovery’ would solve the problem for less able students. They introduced the School Mathematics Project or SMP initiative.
No longer were children given the opportunity to learn the basic language of science and engineering – they were sent on a voyage of discovery where the more complex mathematical concepts were either omitted altogether or conveyed in a manner that was so abstruse that students were unsure of what it was they were actually trying to learn.
Why do I know this? Because I was part of that experiment (the clue to its failure is in the term ‘experiment’). Fortunately, the solution to this dilemma and the reason that I went on to forge a successful career in science came in the extra courses that students like myself were given during their first year in higher education in order to bring us up to the same level as those students who had done ‘real maths’ – the term used by the Physics and Engineering lecturers of the day.
There then followed further political intervention when it was recognised that poor entry figures into higher education were bad for votes so unrealistic commitments were made as to the number of young people that were going to be able to go to University.
Since governments generally have to work to a five year cycle the only way to meet those targets was to reduce the academic standards that were required to gain the necessary qualifications. The negative implications of this action for employers seeking a bright young intake are obvious and do not need to be articulated here.
The UK used to have a healthy and sophisticated Nuclear industry. That is, until the late eighties when it became politically unpopular to develop Nuclear as a source of energy and the politicians, in their wisdom, dismantled the industry in the very country that contributed so profoundly to its inception.
Thirty years later, when we are all worrying about the lights going out due to energy shortages, they are frantically trying to recover lost ground but unfortunately, the supply of suitably qualified engineers with the right experience and educational profile is depleted to the point where we have to rely upon other countries such as France who had the sense to keep their politicians in check on this issue.
Let’s consider another technological trend. The case for automation and robotics is enormously strong when it comes to having a manufacturing capability that competes with the likes of the BRIC nations and even other central European countries.
Despite this fact, the UK has one of the first world’s lowest adoption levels for this technology and there is now a growing awareness of the need to try and recover the lost ground. Why did it take so long for Government to address this issue? One of the reasons was that politicians were afraid that the introduction of robotic technology would increase unemployment and be very bad for votes.
There is a common theme in all of these examples – political interference for completely the wrong reasons. The list of examples such as those above is endless. A robust education system which operates to the kind of standards required to compete on an ever more global stage is critical to the future success of UK manufacturing.
The engineering and science based subjects are not generally easy. That is a harsh fact of life. Acquiring a sound understanding of these subjects requires hard work and commitment. The successful industrial economies recognise this fact. No amount of political intervention will change the complexity of the kind of mathematics needed to design a world class engine.
If the UK manufacturing sector is to compete at the required level we must minimise the political ‘dabbling’ in our education system. We must return academic standards to the level that they were in not too distant history and develop a system that caters for those students who are unable to meet the required standards.
There is room for everyone but we can’t all take the Bill Gates route. Taking standards down to the lowest common denominator may be good for short term votes but it will be suicide for the UK economy in the longer term. In a globalised manufacturing economy we tinker with educational standards at our peril…
Chris Buxton is currently Chief Executive Officer of the British Fluid Power Association (BFPA) and has first hand experience of the machinery of government, having spent two years on secondment to the UK Cabinet Office as part of the government's Better Regulation Initiative.