About the session
A thriving manufacturing industry is one of the cornerstones of a successful developed economy. Not only is manufacturing industry an important contributor to the balance of payments; it supports a significant proportion of service sector jobs. The UK, however, has seen manufacturing industry diminish over the past 30 years due to a number of reasons including capital investment, labour productivity and management focus. There is real danger of manufacturing industry, in this country, going below the critical mass required to be self-sustaining. Despite efforts by bodies such as the DTI and the CBI to revive manufacturing, the decline has continued. Today, there appears an increasing trend to outsource manufacturing, wholesale, to "lower cost" economies such as China. There is a view that this trend is an inevitable evolution of the UK to a "post industrial" service based economy. However, it is not just manufacturing industry that might move to countries like China or India. Indeed, today, low skilled service sector jobs such as call centres are migrating to India. It is the speaker's view that higher added value services such as software including commercial, embedded and applications development may also migrate to countries such as India. In fact, there is a case for arguing that higher added value know-how services are easier to move to lower cost, but well educated, motivated and increasingly self confident populations. On the other hand, the UK's blend of scientific talent and tradition, flexible and skilled labour and good industrial infrastructure make it an excellent home for high value, complex manufacturing operations where close alliance between design and manufacturing is paramount. BOC Edwards is one of few examples of a globally competitive business with substantial manufacturing operations in the UK. With additional manufacturing operations in Eastern and Western Europe, USA, Japan, China, Korea, India and Brazil, the company is in a good position to compare the merits of manufacturing in different countries and believes the UK offers some significant competitive advantages. However, without effective and cohesive action from government, business and the trade unions, these are likely to disappear over time, leading to further hollowing out of the UK economy and future prosperity of the country.
