LEAD FEATURE PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – MAKING IT REAL
both. What we need to do is invest in that and see these
companies scale up and make these components in
large volume. At the moment, it’s only companies like
Aston Martin Lagonda, McLaren and other luxurious or
performance businesses that can afford to put those
components made in low volume into their vehicles.”
More generally in the push towards electric, Stephens
said: “We need to see support mechanisms for the
supply chain, as well as the OEMs. If suppliers
aren’t there, we can’t buy from them. Get
them here; either incentivise inward
investment, whether it’s a big
multinational battery manufacturer
or a composite manufacturer; or we
need a support mechanism in
place to see an SME get a step on
the ladder that allows them to
supply a company like us, and we
will be their route to market in
small scale. If they can supply us,
they can possibly go to JLR or Nissan.
As an SME, you can’t knock on the door
of such an OEM and say ‘can I supply
you?’ The requirements to supply them in scale
and quality are pretty aggressive, so we like to see
ourselves, plus other small volume manufacturers like
McLaren and Lotus, as that doorway into the automotive
sector.”
But helping small companies is dif cult for
government, suggests Willison-Gray, who cites East
Anglia LEP’s recovery plan that failed to touch small
companies, focusing instead on the 3% of businesses
that account for about 30% of economic activity. He did
point up Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire LEP’s D2N2
initiative ( www.d2n2lep.org ) as a good example of SME
engagement, however.
AML’s Stephens highlighted a weakness of the
variation in regional incentives and strategies, however.
“If we want a particular supplier to come into the UK,
we’ll work with our local LEP, of course, but if that
supplier is someone we want to scale up but is in
another geography in the UK, that geography may not
necessarily see us or that company as a strategic part
of its economic future and they won’t provide the
funding. That’s why we need some sort of centralised
strategic fund like AMSCI.” And currently, while there is
automotive support from government for transition to
electric, this is R&D funding, not supply chain
development funding, he added.
Willison-Gray also highlighted another factor at work
in the reshoring mix. A recent business project he was
involved with concerned an electric bike. Looking through
the business plan, he saw that manufacturing would be
in Nigeria. “I thought, that’s odd, but when I looked into
it, it’s because of the trade tariffs on batteries from
China. They can actually manufacture these things 30%
cheaper in Lagos, but their market’s in the UK.” Perhaps
the proposed free ports might make a difference in such
cases.
So, what do we have? Is talk of reshoring different
this time? Yes. The SME component supply sector has
demonstrated its capability; OEMs, government and the
public have clearly seen that – there can’t be many that
don’t have awareness of the impact of distributed
supply chains. There is a belief within SME
manufacturing that reshoring might
actually be possible and from that
self-belief has sprung a new
industry-initiated group that is
already scoring success, while we
already have an established
initiative that has built
connections, relationships and
credibility, and continues to strive
for greater success, building on
existing industry groupings. That we
have missing parts of the supply chain
might not be such a massive issue,
because we can bring existing engineering
capability to bear on different products, as Ventilator
Challenge UK showed. The issue of scaling up small
suppliers is clearly identi ed as an issue, but we have
national models in AMSCI, the NMCL Automotive
Programme and SC21 that have proved their worth. On
the other hand, regional support, while helpful, could
mean too many varying and competing priorities when a
national view is required. Finally, geopolitics has
changed. Obviously, we have Brexit, which is still under
construction, and will affect the country and
manufacturing, but that is a whole other article. We
arrive, then, at a need for a national strategy containing
some explicit aims, because the current reshoring
momentum, however good it looks right now, requires
collective focus and support.
Final word goes to AML’s Stephens on some of what
is needed: “We need to factor in the Strengths,
Weakness, Opportunities and Threats, a proper SWOT
analysis, of what we can do as an industry and country.
And in that we’ll look at supply chains, technology, the
business environment. We need low taxes, we need
investment support funding, we need to make sure that
we’ve identi ed those key supply chain opportunities and
the key areas that we can develop in the next-generation
technologies.”
And speci cally on UK-made parts, he concludes:
“If the automotive industry is strategic, we need to make
sure we can take those suppliers on that journey at the
same time, otherwise, if we have a car industry here,
they’ll be buying componentry from elsewhere, which is a
missed opportunity for the UK.”
Julia Moore,
GTMA CEO and
lead on growing
Reshoring UK
membership and
engagement.
The GTMA’s
own efforts in
reshoring go
back several
years, with the
trade association
the main driver
behind the
creation of
Reshoring UK.
It is an
organisation that,
to coin a phrase,
is oven-ready to
support a broad
reshoring effort,
building as it does
on the strong
foundations of
many existing
associations and
organisations
16 September 2020 | www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets
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