DS-MAY26-PG08_Layout 1 19/05/2026 12:30 Page 6
industry news
nearshoring is becoming a strategic necessity, but automation will be essential for efficient production
where lead times, traceability and supplier reliability matter more than simply finding the lowest labour cost. European defence spending is rising sharply, while aerospace demand continues to grow, creating direct pressure on machining capacity and component availability. These industries can’t afford long delays caused by overseas shipping disruption or unstable supply routes. According to report from Capgemini, the
According to The British Standards Institution (BSI), businesses are now placing ‘a premium on agility’, with nearshoring and regionalisation becoming key responses to geopolitical instability. Supply chain resilience has moved from a procurement issue to a boardroom priority as companies look to reduce dependence on distant suppliers and improve production visibility. This applies to sectors including aerospace, defence, automotive and precision engineering,
share of companies investing in nearshoring or combined reshoring and nearshoring increased from 42% in 2024 to 56% in 2025. However, manufacturing in Europe comes
with higher labour costs, tighter skills shortages and greater pressure on productivity. Nearshoring only works if local production can remain globally competitive. Manufacturers need systems that reduce labour dependency, increase machine utilisation and allow production to continue beyond traditional shift patterns. Robotic loading systems, lights-out
machining, manufacturing execution system (MES) traceability and simplified programming will make regional production financially viable. However, while many SMEs understand the
need for digitalisation, adoption remains slow. Too often, automation still feels like a large- scale transformation project rather than a practical production tool. Manufacturers need automation that fits into the existing shop floor. Simplifying automation therefore matters as
much as automation itself. Technologies like CNC automation systems, offline programming software and modular CNC automation cells help remove friction from daily production. The goal is not just more robots, but automation that operators can actually use. The question is no longer whether
manufacturers should bring production closer. The real question is whether they can make that production efficient enough to compete.
www.tezmaksan.com/en/news solid start, but global issues are now affecting the cmi market
According to the latest Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) figures, the UK contract manufacturing market was fundamentally solid in the first quarter of 2026 but is seeing the effects of global events. The CMI stood at 75 for the quarter, up
8% on the final quarter of 2025. It showed month on month growth from January onwards, but by the end March supplier quoting activity was down 30% and lead times had drifted out by 30% as the crisis in the Middle East started to affect prices and supply chains. The CMI is produced by sourcing
specialist Qimtek and reflects the total purchasing budget for outsourced manufacturing of companies looking to place business in any given month. This represents a sample of over 4,000 companies who could be placing business
matlantis accelerates materials discovery with nvidia alchemi toolkit
Matlantis has announced the integration of the NVIDIA ALCHEMI Toolkit into its platform to deliver unprecedented computational throughput for industrial materials simulation. LightPFP, Matlantis’ lightweight potential for large-scale simulations, integrates with the NVIDIA
ALCHEMI Toolkit-Ops. To ensure more flexible resource allocation and highly stable operations, LightPFP has transitioned to a server-based architecture that can be seamlessly invoked from standard notebook environments. While communication overhead is a common bottleneck in such distributed configurations, Matlantis successfully mitigated this challenge by replacing the neighbourhood list construction process during inference with the NVIDIA ALCHEMI Toolkit-Ops. Looking ahead, Matlantis is also planning the integration of its Universal Machine-Learning
Interatomic Potential (uMLIP), PFP, with the NVIDIA ALCHEMI Toolkit. “Our continued collaboration with NVIDIA represents our commitment to providing the most
advanced tools for material developers,” said Masateru Kawaguchi, VP of Product Department, Matlantis. “With LightPFP, followed by our plans for the full PFP potential, we’re enabling customers to accelerate their R&D cycles while maintaining the highest level of accuracy and performance in the industry.”
https://matlantis.com/en/ 8 DESIGN SOLUTIONS may 2026
that together have a purchasing budget of more than £3.4bn and a supplier base of over 7,000 companies with a verified turnover in excess of £25bn. The baseline for the index is 100, which represents the
average size of the subcontract manufacturing market between 2014 and 2018. Compared to 12 months ago, when the CMI was 64, it has increased by 17%, but it is still slightly down on where it was two years ago. Commenting on the figures, Qimtek owner KarlWigart said: “It was good to see a pretty solid start to the
year with good activity from both buyers and suppliers. Then, geopolitics had a real impact on the last month of the quarter, with supplier quoting activity dropping 30% and lead times increasing by 30%. With fewer quotes going out it is not a good omen for the level of activity in the coming months, and longer delivery times are an indicator of supply chain disruption.”
www.qimtek.co.uk kyocera develops
ceramic core substrate for ai semiconductors
Kyocera Corporation is commercialising a new multilayer ceramic core substrate for advanced semiconductor packages, such as xPUs1 and switch ASICs, which are rapidly scaling in complexity as AI data center architectures evolve. Built from the company’s proprietary fine
ceramic materials, the new core substrate is engineered for high-density wiring and exceptional rigidity. These characteristics dramatically reduce deformation (warpage) in high-performance semiconductor packages, a key challenge as demand for greater device integration and higher processing speed continues to rise, the company explains.
uk.kyocera.com
www.designsolutionsmag.co.uk
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