The Kaizen Central Podcast: Recent Episodes
ManufacturingTV
Each week, manufacturers and friends gather for a one hour discussion via Zoom about key issues facing the sector. We thought we'd produce the meeting as a podcast so more people have the chance to listen.
Hosted by Nick Peters, Editor of ManufacturingTV.
In 2023 a new conference landed called Women With Metal, conceived and directed by Kirsty Davies-Chinnock, MD of Professional Polishing Services in the West Midlands. On this edition of The Production Line, we're joined by Kirsty and by two of the 2024 conference speakers: Steph Snade, founder of the Limitless Leadership Academy and Jeremy Stockdale, founder of Ylead.Topic: breaking down the workplace barriers and systems (created by men over decades) and making the shop floor free from sexism, unconscious bias (and conscious!) and reaping the ultimate dividend of a wider talent pool. Hang onto your hats, it's a great conversation! Find out more: https://womenwithmetal.com/
The latest Make UK statistical snapshot of UK manufacturing, the 2024 Fact Card, shows the UK slipping out of the world Top Ten for the first time in years - perhaps ever.
But as this discussion with Make UK's Policy Director Verity Davidge and Bath University's Professor Michael Lewis shows, it is the result of seismic shifts in the world economy rather than a weakness in UK manufacturing.
And yet at the same time, those world events demand an urgent reappraisal of what we make in the UK and how we make it.
And what role government needs to play in that via its new industrial strategy.
Dr Andy Palmer is one of the most respected figures in the automotive industry in the UK and beyond. After a stellar 23 year career at Nissan - where he developed the Nissan Leaf among other standout models - he became CEO at Aston Martin in 2014, then in 2021 he left to focus on projects in the electric vehicle space. In this wide-ranging discussion with Nick Peters, he underscores the urgency with which the UK government needs to act to secure the future of the national auto industry. He also talks about his career, his management and engineering philosophy, and about his passion for helping disadvantaged young people into manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships.
The General Election 2024 will signal a sea-change in the way the UK economy is run. Growth is central to that and an industrial strategy is the key to achieving it. But what does industrial strategy actually mean? How does it work? Is it just money? (No.) Is it politically quite hard to carry off? (Yes.) And do manufacturers have a role in shaping it? (Yes, again.)
Nick discusses all this with Giles Wilkes, who was Sir Vince Cable's special adviser and helped run industrial strategy in the Coalition years and then special adviser to PM Theresa May for the 2017-19 industrial strategy, helping devise Made Smarter and much else.
Author Will Hutton believes passionately in the power of manufacturing to lead a renaissance in the British economy. For decades, he has promoted the idea that a successful economy, a successful society, can only be based on harmony between individual self interest and community, the I and the We as he puts it, and it is all brought together in his new book, out now in paperback, called This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain. It's a sweeping historical analysis of the state we are in - and how to repair it.
Also in this edition, meet FOBEM: the Festival of British Engineering and Manufacturing, a bold new initiative to introduce young people to the joys and thrills of modern manufacturing.
The Production Line is a new podcast from the team that brings you ManufacturingTV. In fact it is available as both video and podcast for you to enjoy when and where you please.
In this first edition, we talk to Pragmatic, the rising star of the UK semiconductor industry. We discuss a new survey into public perceptions of the manufacturing sector and the outcomes may surprise you! And Henry Anson of The Manufacturer talks about the 2024 Smart Manufacturing and Engineering show - more like a festival - at the NEC.
Please add us to your favourites! And keep an eye on social media for future editions. (And if you have any story ideas, please email info@ukmfgmedia.com).
How a PPE contract worth 10 times its annual turnover transformed Ramfoam, and why they could never have fulfilled this life-changing opportunity without help from the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at Warwick University.
Tim Mulqueen of Ramfoam and Paul Milne from WMG join Nick Peters and the Kaizen Central regulars to discuss the implications of targeted procurement for UK SME manufacturers and the importance of being alive to the amount of help there is out there for manufacturers if you just go looking.
Manufacturers used to be the focal point of their communities – the glue that kept them together, almost.
Today, most communities in the UK are seemingly unaware that manufacturers work among them.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t still going on, and if the government is serious about levelling up, encouraging more companies to be that community linchpin would be a very good start.
Garment-maker David Nieper Limited is just such an example.
From skills training through to support for local education, the company (by no means a giant, with turnover of just under £20m) is a true pillar of the local community.
Tellingly, when the rush to ‘globalise’ (offshore) started in the 90s, the company resolutely refused to make their products anywhere but in the UK.
On this edition of Kaizen Central, we meet the company’s MD Christopher Nieper OBE.
Stephen Phipson, chief exec of Make UK, joined us on this month’s Kaizen Central to talk about the opportunities Net Zero 2050 offers UKMfg, and his campaign for government to create a more joined-up Industrial Strategy.
Kaizen Central is hosted by ManufacturingTV’s Nick Peters.
The government’s hostility to business, from the PM downwards, makes the prospect of a joined-up industrial strategy in the near term extremely unlikely. What do we need to do to change this?
Terry Scuoler, former chief exec at EEF (now Make UK) and now the chairman of the Institute of Export and International Trade led an impassioned conversation that brought out much of the frustration manufacturers are feeling with government today.
Do you want to grow your business? Do you know HOW?
Scaling up is a real discipline in its own right. This week, Neale Lewis, a scale-up expert, joins us for Kaizen Central.
We discuss the barriers, challenges, opportunities and rich rewards for your business - and also for national prosperity - that come from a well-executed scale-up.
What did the late Sir Clive Sinclair mean to you? Lone maverick or future-shaping genius?
His obituaries last week poked fun at the C5, but who's to say he wasn't simply decades ahead of his time?
And as for the ZX-80/Spectrum there are many whose working life was changed forever by early access to home computing.
The KC crew debate his legacy with Chris Needham from Innovate UK who outlines how far we have come on the road to better commercialisation of great ideas, inventions and innovation.
How much is manufacturing's potential held back by poor leadership and people skills? And how much does focus on short-term results mean experienced workers are shed simply to save cash, damaging long term prospects?
And how often are lean initiatives doomed to fail because people are ignored?
The team discuss ways we could become better at people management in the UK. But it won't be easy...
For anyone wanting to understand the challenges facing us as we consider a NetZero future, this is a must-listen. Graham Cruikshank, CTO of CPI – and a leader of the HVMC’s Circular Economy Strategy Team - delivers a comprehensive assessment of where we are now, and what needs to be done to achieve the change we seek.
If you’d like to view Graeme’s presentation instead: https://youtu.be/btlMfGAn6uo
Christina Scott runs BeYonder, a small batch clothing manufacturing business in Glasgow. She and her team have been beating the drum for ethically-sourced materials and UK-based production for years. Now the industry is catching up with them as big-name fashion brands start rediscovering the joys and benefits of UK manufacturing. Chrissy and the KC team discuss the re-emergence of the clothing - and textile - industry in the UK.
Permanent magnets are critical to the manufacture of wind turbines, electric vehicle motors and many consumer goods.
They are made using ‘rare earth’ elements and one country is rapidly cornering the market: China. This will give them a huge advantage in manufacturing goods cheaper than the West can manage.
Rare earth mining and magnet production come at a significant environmental cost. Should consumers start demanding to see products’ environmental credentials?
Meanwhile, the race is now on to develop alternative rare earth supply chains.
Meet Ian Higgins, MD of Less Common Metals Ltd of Ellesmere Port, a world leader in the manufacture and supply of complex alloy systems and metals, as well as being specialists in those based on rare earth elements. In this podcast he describes what his company and others in Europe are doing to loosen China’s grip - and the likely impact on our future if China decides to exert its market dominance.
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Global supply chains have changed dramatically in the last 2-3 years. Reshoring is all the rage, but are you doing it properly or are you leaving cash on the table? Procurement expert Jeremy Bowley from Insider Pro has advice - and some occasionally hard words - for manufacturers who are failing to capitalise on the opportunity to improve product quality and ultimately corporate value.
This is the soundtrack from ManufacturingTV's weekly Kaizen Central Zoom meeting. Email info@ukmfgmedia.com to find out how to get involved.
Tom Brown has written one of the most explosive books about the way politics and the City of London conspired to cause the decline of UK manufacturing over the last 50 years. What can we learn from those lessons as we chart our way forward to a stronger future for British industry?
Joining Kaizen Central this week is Nick Russel, engineer and business owner, who had several opportunities to cash out and ‘get rich quick’ while developing his group of companies, but chose instead to invest for the long haul, nurturing growth and a loyal workforce. Learn from his experiences – and from other members of the group – about how to develop ‘Mittelstand’ style companies in the UK.
The book referred to in the conversation is Tragedy & Challenge: An Inside View of UK Engineering's Decline and the Challenge of the Brexit by Tom Brown, who will be next week’s guest.
Currently, most product testing is done post-production, which adds significant delays to distribution and demands increased warehousing while tests are completed.
What if quality control could happen in real time, using sensors and artificial intelligence? The savings in time and effort would be enormous, across entire supply chains.
Andy Dorset, Associate Director of R&D at Procter & Gamble, came on Kaizen Central to discuss how his team is researching how to do this, with the University of York and Libra Chemicals, in a project funded by Innovate UK.
Hosted by Nick Peters, Editor of ManufacturingTV
Authors Beverley Nielsen and Steven McCabe joined the regular Kaizen Central discussion to discuss their new book, Exploring the Green Economy. Listen in to the conversation to find out what it means for manufacturing, for the economy and for society as a whole.
Hosted by Nick Peters, Editor of ManufacturingTV