Advanced Manufacturing is a major competitive strength in the European Union according to a study published in February 2015 by the Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) Observatory. The Observatory’s role is to provide national and regional policymakers with information on KETs for European competitiveness by comparing the EU with North America and East Asia. The Observatory… Read more »

Support for the UK transport equipment supply chain now includes the UK Rail Supply Group which has been given £500,000 to help rail suppliers secure new business. £38bn is being invested in the UK rail infrastructure over the next fifteen years. Many other countries have similar investment plans and so there is a series of… Read more »

An important success factor in successful New Product Introduction is the attitude of consumers in the target market. The internet represents new ways of informing potential buyers and stimulating purchase decisions. To make the most of the net knowledge of attitudes in the target group is vital. Mckinsey reports that in China there are 632… Read more »

The process approach underpins a vast amount of contemporary business management and strategy whether this is the improvement of existing business processes or the introduction of new processes in support of innovative products and/or services. The Audit Standard VDA 6.3 is a standardised procedure for the conduct of process audits to assess organisational performance and… Read more »

Value added is part of the productivity ratio and productivity matters because growth in productivity is the only sustainable way of increasing GDP. It is widely recognised that the UK has shown some puzzling trends in productivity since 2008. This is now seen as part of a much broader global situation. According to the Conference… Read more »

A year ago the Department of Education published an important report on 3D printers in schools and their potential uses in the curriculum. The aim was to find out whether this technology offered new opportunities for the teaching of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Improvements in this area are important in terms of increasing… Read more »

Paul Hardiman, TPM consultant manager at Industry Forum explores how organisations can control their losses and even turn them into profits by learning how to use value analysis/value engineering (VA/VE) and industrial symbiosis. Whether an organisation uses lean principles or other tools like Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) to drive improvement, it is important for an… Read more »

Innovation has been climbing corporate agendas for some while. Bigger firms are these days being warned that they face the threat of a smaller firm coming up with a disruptive innovation that may well weaken their competitive position and may even result in their demise. This kind of disruptive innovation will be equally serious for… Read more »

When companies begin to implement Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) they often start by piloting Autonomous Maintenance (AM).  This is understandable as AM is one of the key distinguishing features of TPM and also one of the most important activities when understood correctly.  To understand AM correctly it needs to be seen as an improvement activity… Read more »

We are used to the idea that the UK economy has exhibited a ‘productivity puzzle’ since the crisis of 2008 – with employment remaining strong while output has been weak. The trend in business investment which has failed to recover from the 2008 crash has helped reinforce the ‘productivity puzzle’ image. ONS have just published… Read more »