manufacturing roundtable 33


Michael Sachpekidis explained that some overseas manufacturing was coming back to the UK. “Globally, It can be difficult to control quality and gain the skillsets.


In


the UK we have those skills and controls, so more specialist items are being made here, and products requiring a lower skillset are manufactured elsewhere.


“For Moog UK it is important that we have the right recruitment programme in place to keep feeding our manufacturing activities, and we also need people to appreciate our work and recognise that it’s made within the UK.“


Moog manufactures products ranging from miniature hydraulics for F1 racing cars to the large system actuators for Wimbledon’s retractable centre-court roof.


Three weeks after a successful MBO, Graham Steele admitted Diametric sales were “... going alright“.


Michael Sachpekidis


Steele agreed that the ageing workforce was a concern, not least because younger recruits often didn’t understand the work ethic – “It’s not something taught at school.“ Being a high-quality manufacturer, it was difficult to gain recruits with the right skills or talent potential.


“The downside is that it takes about 18 months to train an individual to be competent in front of a customer and actually explain or sell a product technically.“


Manufacturing clients in general appeared confident, said lawyer Sean Wright, although recruitment was a major concern, particularly for specialist sectors – “perhaps a symptom of our education system.“


Kate Arnott


He explained that Diametric’s flagship products are for automotive marques such as McLaren and Jaguar. “We work directly with OEMs to innovate and come up with exciting new products, whereas they would struggle to get that sort of service in the Far East. However, it would also be nice to get purchasing managers to realise that high- quality products and service does not always come cheap.“


And, there was still the risk that innovation, design and specification work would be done in the UK and the manufacturing would then go overseas. But, the costs of ’mopping up the problems of overseas manufacture’ were increasingly coming under scrutiny, he added.


Nigel Campkin revealed: “The conservatory blind market has matured and shrunk over the years, whereas the shutter market is taking off and growing fast.


“The challenge for the manufacturing sector is an ageing workforce doing what can be quite physical jobs. We certainly don’t seem to be attracting enough young people, and those that do, don’t really want to stay.“


He highlighted the transient career nature of Generation Y employees and the need for manufacturing to embrace and resolve that generation’s work ambitions.


He noted much more M&A activity, notably from overseas buyers over the past two to three years aiming to add quality businesses and British skills to their global operations, plus more PE houses currently entering the M&A market.


Banker Antony White agreed that manufacturing M&A, investment and reshoring was happening, often with companies aiming to “keep their foot on the gas, to avoid falling behind. But the skills shortage continues to come up in every conversation with clients.


“Either we address it through apprenticeships or automation, or spreading those skills possessed by our ageing employees out to a far wider workforce, but how we achieve this is another question.“


How do we value skill? Do we pay enough for talent?


Manufacturing recruiter Gemma Langley confirmed the Roundtable’s positive views of the sector, and increasing demand for recruitment. However, she added: “Many clients want the best candidates, but don’t necessarily want to pay the market rate for their skills.“


Fees for sourcing the right candidate and their potential ongoing salaries are both under pressure. Too often, she felt, businesses were viewing employment


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – DECEMBER 15/JANUARY 16


of talent as a lowest cost commodity procurement process rather than the acquirement of quality and future value. This attitude, coupled with the lack of manufacturing recruits coming into the talent pool, particularly engineers, was making recruitment much more challenging.


Sachpekidis agreed that salaries were a contentious area. “For many years we have not seen enough university graduates come out with science or engineering degrees. Why?“


He suggested the image and awareness of the industry was not as high as it had been a decade or so ago. “Engineers used to be more appreciated for their abilities and skillsets and therefore paid quite well for what they were able to achieve.


“We wouldn’t be able to drive our cars or use mobile phones and such, if it wasn’t for engineers and scientists. I think that was appreciated back then, but not now.“


Decline in UK manufacturing due to overseas low-cost competition and the rise of higher salaried service-led sectors within the UK economy, had added to the pressures on manufacturing as a career, its salary levels and recruitment. “If you don’t pay engineers well enough, you get the gap in the generation of recruits that we have now.“


Recruitment, skills and salaries were involved in a vicious cycle, said Arnott. “People probably should be paid more but the biggest issue for the majority of manufacturing employers at the moment is increased wage costs, with the new minimum wage regulation and pension auto-enrolment all on the horizon.“


Steele: “Recruits all seem to want to be on the good money too quickly.“


Campkin felt many businesses were suffering from austerity aftershock. “Having battened down the hatches post 2008, we are through that and now ready for growth, looking to recruit. But the people we brought through the tough times may not now be able to provide that growth. We have spent the past years looking for cheap, and now we’re realising that cheap is not going to get us to where we want to be. We need to get serious talent.“


White noted recent EEF confirmation that the vast majority of university-qualified engineers went into financial services, or other sectors perceived as ’sexier’, or more


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