British Manufacturing

[Jonty]

If Johnny Foreigner hadn't come in and invested in this country we would be in a right state. About 40% of our exports are produced by foreign-owned countries. Some of these companies have given traditional British brands more respect than their British counterparts. Look at Rolls Royce cars - it was going nowhere until bought by BMW. They paid £40m for a name but no car and no factory and now it is producing modern cars in a state-of-the-art factory with highly-skilled British workers and managers. Compare this with the respect shown by British managers for another British brand previously associated with excellence: Rover.
British industry is now lean and fit and has largely thrown off the "codge and bodge" image and reputation of the 1970s and 1980s, and as far as I can see this change is to a considerable extent due to foreign firms.
We have benefited enormously from the inflow of capital and good management from foreign investors.
The proportion of people working in manufacturing in the UK is similar to that in the USA and France. However it isn't as high as that in Germany. The Germans however are excellent engineers and frankly we are not in the same league. Germany is the largest exporting nation in the world expressed by value. My recollection is that the Germans virtually took on the rest of the world in 1939 and almost won.
The UK has world-class industries including aerospace, pharmaceuticals, defence, food and drink, automobiles and advanced engineering and design.
Unfortunately for many unskilled and semi-skilled people "metal bashing" has often moved abroad to cut costs and a lot of it is likely to remain there.
Getting back to cycling, Pashley and Moulton both have a design and manufacturing capability in the UK. Both are beacons of excellence. Moulton I believe export 90% of their output. On the components and acccessories side there is also Carradice and Brooks saddles (the latter "saved" by an Italian company no less).
There are also a number of artisan custom-made cycle chefs who make frames and assemble bikes mainly but not exclusively with foreign-made components. I suspect the "UK value-added" in these operations is high.
The fact is that British industry will not be able to compete purely on price and those who buy purely on price will rarely buy British.
I suspect the way forward is to be more like the Germans: excellent engineering, excellent science, excellent workmanship, excellent management, thereby producing high-value products which people need and want to buy - at a price.
Personnally I would like to see the UK manufacturing more quality products which people will buy. We can't rely on bankers and cutting each others' hair.
The question is how can we achieve this and I don't know the answer.
However even the Germans are now having a rough time.
jonty

[thirdcrank]

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 999178.ece

Note this bit:

Another big market is, ironically, Japan, where there is a traditional respect for UK engineering.

[Jonty]

The decline of the West Midlands has been mentioned; it was once the economic powerhouse of the UK and now it has an unemployment rate higher than average.
Much as I like the area and especially Brummies, the region's decision-makers including politicans, industralists and unions need to ask themselves some difficult questions such as:
1) Why has the new inward investment in automobile production gone to other areas of the UK such as Nissan in the North East, Toyota in Derbyshire and Honda in Swindon? Even Triumph Motorcycles re-established by John Bloor and a very successful enterprise -is located in Hickley in Leicestershire in the East Midlands.
2) Why didn't the region go with the "Moulton" bid which BMW favoured rather than the Phoenix Four bid when BMW decided to exist from Rover? As I understand it John Moulton would have established a nich operation making MGs at Longbridge and employed half the workforce. That could have been a successful business and protected the MG brand. Anyone over retirement age would have been retired and got a pension. If BMW couldn't make a go of Rover as a volume producer why did the decision-makers decide that 4 British car industry managers could do it?
I think that a lot of the region's difficulties is due to a lack of leadership.
jonty

[glueman]

There's a silly term knocking about on wall plaques these days, 'Investors in People'. Daft as it is the sentiment is right, the staff are your biggest asset as a company. Sadly it took UK manufacturing a long time to figure this one out.

I once had a summer job operating a lathe, even though I didn't know exactly how to. I'm sure I wasn't untypical. It's what happens when work is contracted and sub-contracted through various layers, each taking a slice, until there is no lower point to which quality can descend.
That was UK manfs in the 1970s in a nutshell. There was an edifice known as, say, car manufacturing with large buildings and a big staff, a front office and a product leaving the factory but it was in most senses virtual before the term entered common parlance. The business model and the thing it manufactured was based on pretend. Quality, business relations, viability, management, all pretend. Motoring journalists pretending they were good cars while they rusted in the parking lots and fell to bits on the road.

If engineers are good in Germany it's because they've been trained to be good and are rewarded for being good. They have a sense of the whole business and their role in it and a commitment to being better. In the UK if you fitted car windscreens at 17 years of age there was a good chance you'd be fitting them at 65. No promotion or prospects, no dialogue no commitment from either side. Crappyness built in.

[AlanD]

It seems as though most stuff is made in China now. I think Raleigh is, I know Hornby and Bachmann are. This causes me a BIG BIG problem, because there are so many beautiful locomotives out there that I would dearly love to own and run, but they come from a country that has an appalling human rights record and not so long ago they executed a Brit.

[thirdcrank]

It's all so much different over here.

human rights.jpg (3.35 KiB) Viewed 477 times

[DavidT]

There are a huge number of small dynamic manufacturuers in the UK competing very successfully in the world market, but because they are small and may employ fewer than 100 people they are not noticed. Put all their efforts together and the result per head of employees is far greater than that of the larger companies with their management overheads.

Agreed.

For example - EEF (The manufacturers' organisation) has 6,000 member companies.

Times have changed and manufacturing is a shadow of it's former self. But it is still out there.

[Jonty]

I'm trying to buy less stuff made in China as a lot of it is poorly made and doesn't last. I think the word I'm looking for is rubbish.
jonty

[Mick F]

Much as I agree with you, Jonty, how does one know what's NOT made in China?

As much as I admire Italian flare and design, where are my beautiful Campagnolo components made?
Maybe they are assembled and finished in Italy, but where are the ratchets, springs, ball bearings, seals, and washers made?

[Jonty]

Fair comment.
What's put me off Chinese goods is an article I read recently about a Brit who was trying to get scooters manufactured in China for export and my general experience of things falling to bits.
The article almost made you weep. The chinese said one thing and did another. They even downgraded the quality of the components without discussing or agreeing it with him. He said that if he were to start again he would have set up in Japan, South Korea, Tiwan or even the UK. Even though people have been executed for adulterating children's milk apparently others are still doing it. It seems criminality is rife in spite of the death penalty.
Although an ancient civilisation and very clever, it seems that Chinese standards of behaviour are often very different from what we would find culturally acceptable.
I suspect that any company investing in China better ensure that it has complete control over the quality of its products and any components it buys in and is aware of the cultural differences.
Perhaps there's an opportunity for good, solid, honest British manufacturing here?
jonty

[mw3230]

I'm trying to buy less stuff made in China as a lot of it is poorly made and doesn't last. I think the word I'm looking for is rubbish.
jonty

Perhaps the stuff that is poorly made and which doesn't last is made in China to a low price and suspect quality - the stuff which is good and which does last is made in China to a higher price and quality

[hubgearfreak]

Perhaps the stuff that is poorly made and which doesn't last is made in China to a low price and suspect quality - the stuff which is good and which does last is made in China to a higher price and quality

you're right. i've got a decent enough olympus camera.
to suggest anything else smacks (to me) of racism

[GrahamNR17]

Perhaps the stuff that is poorly made and which doesn't last is made in China to a low price and suspect quality - the stuff which is good and which does last is made in China to a higher price and quality

you're right. i've got a decent enough olympus camera.
to suggest anything else smacks (to me) of racism

That's a bit harsh. Not so much racism as experience of recent history. There was a rash of Chinese imports throughout the 80s and early 90s, and it was by and large a byword for utter junk. You can't brand people racist due to their own experience

However, I would defend Chinese goods now. They make everything in every possible level of quality, at every possible price point. Frankly, they make better stuff now than we ever did.

All that said, I avoid Chinese where it's possible/practical to do so. Being involved in dog rescue it goes against the grain to support an economy with such a horrendous track record on the treatment of dogs/other animals.

But that's a whole other argument

[hubgearfreak]

by that same token graham, given that BL cars were a joke, i'd recommend you steer clear of british made goods.

[GrahamNR17]

by that same token graham, given that BL cars were a joke, i'd recommend you steer clear of british made goods.

There aren't any British made goods, or haven't you been following the thread?