Category: News & Updates

UK manufacturing is still feeling the impact of the last two years’ events. Production and economic disruptions created many challenges that the industry is still struggling to overcome. These obstacles have been exacerbated by more recent events, such as the Russian war in Ukraine and the erratic China lockdowns.

An unfortunate result of these problems is the rising cost increase that UK manufacturing has to manage. Supply chains are still recovering, and energy bills are rising, but the demand for British manufactured products is also growing. This increase in demand is outgrowing the supply to fulfil it, causing an increase in costs. So how do manufacturers address these costs and maintain their competitiveness within the industry?

National Insurance Increase

From April 2022, the UK government increased the National Insurance contributions (NIC) by 1.25% for the tax year. This means manufacturers would be required to contribute 15.05% for each workforce member as opposed to the previous 13.8%. With the industry already struggling to fill positions, there are concerns that this increase will make it difficult for employers to recruit new engineers. If growth is limited due to this, it could increase the existing skills gap and create significant problems for the productivity of many manufacturing companies.

The response to this increase varies, but 38% of businesses have stated that they plan to pass the additionally incurred NIC onto the customers, while others choose not to. Some companies cannot absorb the costs; in this case, letting inflation trickle down to the broader economy is a sensible solution; this can enable managers to protect their employees’ jobs and allow time for the situation to improve.

Increasing Energy Costs

There has been a sharp rise in energy costs during 2022, impacting everyone, domestic, commercial and industrial. However, the high energy nature of manufacturing means that these increases affect them more accurately than in other areas of the UK.

These sharp increases have forced manufacturers to assess every business area to increase energy efficiency and mitigate costs. This can include analysing the energy usage of processes, the requirements of various equipment, and even temporarily halting the most energy-intensive procedures.

Government Support for Industry

The manufacturing industry plays a considerable role in the UK’s economic output. Manufacturers employ roughly 2.6 million people across the country and are responsible for 44% of all UK exports. Despite the many issues the industry has faced, manufacturing remains a vital organ within the larger body of the county. Fortunately, the government may be taking steps to support this vital industry.

The UK government announced earlier this year that it would be providing support for high energy usage businesses that are struggling with the rising energy costs. The plan is to extend the energy Intensive Industries Compensation scheme and, thanks to its increased budget, be broadened to apply to more businesses, including steel manufacturing.

Industry Minister Lee Rowley said he wished to keep UK manufacturing at the forefront of the industry globally by providing this assistance. With the current changes to the scheme already having a positive impact on some areas of the sector, potentially, this support could be extended to include various other manufacturers, such as spring suppliers.

Choosing Local Power Generation

The rising costs of energy will inevitably have an impact on any manufacturer’s ability to remain competitive. These issues have not just been limited to financial expenses either. In a recent survey conducted by Aggreko, 65% of the 251 manufacturers stated that they had experienced an increasing number of power cuts over the last 18 months. The combination of the erratic market and unexpected power cuts harming operations has encouraged the manufacturing industry to explore on-site power and distributed energy solutions.

Distributed energy systems (DES) is a broad term that covers a diverse array of energy generations, control and storage options. This can be applied to on-site power generators and renewable solar and wind power sources. With the advances in renewable technologies, its become increasingly affordable for compression spring manufacturers to decrease their energy costs through solar panels’ on-site power generation. Additionally, with the load management installed, on-site managers can remain unaffected by widespread power cuts from more centralised sources such as national power stations.

Before national power grids were established, each business needed to develop its internal power generation. On-site power enables managers to specifically regulate the power they need as well as provide the desired energy security for their operations. Returning to this may be a solution for manufacturers to cut costs and improve their environmental efficiency.

Manufacturing’s Future

The importance of manufacturing for the UK economy and its high international standing ensures a bright future, but how to reach that destination is still unclear. These rising costs will continue to stress existing processes and test any innovations. Still, we at European Springs firmly believe that the industry’s resilience will be able to overcome any of these challenges.

European Springs plans to rise to these challenges presented and use these obstacles as opportunities to learn and explore. We are committed to constantly exploring new ideas and improving our methods to provide our clients with consistently excellent results with our bespoke pressings and springs.

Read more about why European Springs is a leading industry manufacturer here.

It’s widely known that the manufacturing industry was one of the most significant contributors to harmful greenhouse gases, but this is all changing thanks to adopting new procedures and processes to reduce this environmental damage to minimal levels.

This commitment is heavily connected to the global shift to a greener world, with the most support coming from the UK, thanks to new government policies. This coordination aims to see the manufacturing industry reduce its emissions to staggeringly low levels and create an ecologically sound supply chain that can be sustained indefinitely.

Net Zero 2050 Explained

The UK government’s Net Zero 2050 strategy is an impressive target to reduce harmful emissions by decarbonising all sectors across the UK by the year 2050. These ambitious plans have affected every industry and inspired significant changes nationwide in manufacturing companies. This eventual goal is staggered with various smaller targets preceding it to ensure progress. Examples of these goals are ending the sale of new diesel vans and cars by 2030 and incentives for farmers to use low-carbon methods. Every day more ideas are being developed to assist in this laudable goal of reducing the climate impact of all industries and developing this emerging Green Industrial Revolution.

The Industries Approach to Climate Change

The industry has widely embraced this goal of becoming sustainable, which is no small task considering the industry was responsible for an estimated 20% of UK emissions. The current plan is to reduce this significantly before 2030, and according to the CCC’s annual assessment, whilst there is a long way to go to reach the desired 90% reduction by 2050, progress is being made

Recycling is a vital way of creating a sustainable company. Unfortunately, the raw resources the manufacturing industry requires are not infinite, and mining new natural resources each year requires significant effort and energy that negatively impacts the environment. New methods, such as waste hierarchy, are being introduced to combat this.

Apply the Waste Hierarchy

As a UK spring manufacturer, we know that one of the most successful ways to improve your company’s sustainability is to include the waste hierarchy in your work processes. This hierarchy is a thought exercise that can be applied to any manufacturing company regardless of its context.

It works similar to a flow chart but is usually visualised as an upside-down triangle. This is because the most favourable options are encountered first, and only if these prove impossible do you move to the next step down. This process continues when addressing your waste materials, checking each step to find the highest one that applies with the worst-case scenario (environmentally) at the bottom.

The steps are as follows:

Prevention – This is the first, best step to apply to your waste materials. By preventing materials from becoming waste, you prevent any problems preemptively. This adds the benefit of inspiring a lean, streamlined manufacturing operation that requires fewer resources and helps save financially.

Reuse or Recycle – These two steps have the similar goal of finding new productive uses for your waste. Reuse applies more to refurbishing and repairing objects to extend their life; in manufacturing, this can apply to the equipment used. Recycling waste materials focuses on ensuring that any waste materials are recycled for new uses. For example, any damaged tension springs can be recycled for their reusable materials.

Recovery – This option is a less effective alternative to recycling. Recovery is the process of incinerating the waste materials to regain some of the lost energy used to collect it in the first place. These materials are burnt for electricity production and help reduce the burning of fossil fuels.

Disposal – this is the lowest step of the waste hierarchy and the worst option environmentally. With this choice, your waste material will be sent to a landfill site. Due to this choice’s environmental impact, the UK government is highly taxing landfill usage. Any company pursuing a sustainable future should avoid this step as much as possible.

The hierarchy is a proven effective tool for lowering a company’s waste materials, providing ecological benefits, and adding a financially favourable efficiency to the usage of your materials.

Sustainability Through Innovation

The main challenge of creating a sustainable manufacturing industry is not limited to material usage, and many other areas have been explored successfully for environmental improvements.

Manufacturers are intensive energy users that can gain significant savings by decarbonisation. Switching to low carbon technologies supports both the Net Zero strategy but also the natural financial optimisation of your business.

Many manufacturers are investing in air source heat pumps for their building heating and cooling needs. These relatively new alternatives to conventional systems are significantly more environmentally friendly. For example, ASHP units transfer heat or cold from outside, which is a low carbon operation that awards them with a zero-carbon rating. Choosing these will also open up the possibilities of using green electricity tariffs, which many energy suppliers offer.

European Springs is constantly searching for new ways of improving our sustainability as one of the leading manufacturing companies in the UK. We apply these green processes to the creation of all our wireforms, springs and automotive metal pressings.

Browse our stock catalogue for more details on what we can supply for you.

The UK manufacturing industry plays an essential role in supporting the economy. With over 270 thousand businesses in the UK contributing to this sector, the UK is internationally known as a significant contributor to global manufacturing.

STEM is an integral part of this industry as it covers science, technology, engineering and mathematics, all essential skills needed for every role within manufacturing. However, these STEM roles need to adapt and evolve to fit the ever-changing needs of this vital industry, and apprenticeships help with that.

Increased Need for Engineers

 

The skills gap has been troubling the industry for many years. In addition, recruitment difficulties have plagued manufacturing as many companies struggle to ensure complete teams. At the start of the year, the British chamber of commerce reported record highs in recruitment struggles. This has been credited to several reasons, but they all have the same result of making it difficult for companies to fill team positions. The more a company’s team is affected by the lack of skills, the more it will affect the quality of their products. This is why European Springs prides itself on promoting its STEM apprenticeship schemes and supporting new people as they begin their careers in manufacturing.

Is a STEM Apprenticeship Right for You?

With STEM covering a broad range of roles and job possibilities, it can be daunting to envision your future within it and assess if it’s the right place for you.

The ability to use logic effectively and identify when processes are not as efficient as they can be is evidence that you may be skilled in critical thinking. As bespoke spring manufacturers, we rely on these critical thinkers, people who can spot these problems and then create reasonable solutions to fix them. These skills can be effectively applied to almost any role within the manufacturing industry as, at its core, the sector is grounded in science and mathematics.

To be an engineer for a springs manufacturer, you need to have a detailed understanding of the materials you’ll be using and the machinery involved. But knowing how it works is only a first step.

Despite the initial impression that STEM apprenticeships are a mechanical process, the truth is that they require individuals who can be creative. All industries rely on growth and change to keep up within this competitive field, which is as accurate on a company level as on a personal level. Therefore, successful engineering apprentices need to develop their creativity alongside their critical thinking. These two skills combined will enable them to solve any problem that may arise and recommend new, more efficient processes that will give their associated company an edge in the industry.

STEM Apprenticeship Benefits for Employers

The manufacturing industry has been struggling with a skills gap for some time. To solve this issue within our own company, European Springs has long supported engineering apprenticeships and STEM apprenticeships in general.

This gives us a different perspective on the usefulness of STEM apprenticeships. In addition, as each applicant successfully progresses through their time working in a single area, we have seen a broader uplifting of all the processes we manage. This success can be attributed partly to the unique perspective each apprentice provides our company.

As mentioned earlier, our engineers are encouraged to speak up about ineffective processes and use their creativity to recommend improvements, including our STEM apprentices. Each student we take on will bring new ideas and vision for achieving the most efficient working processes. These new ideas can be assessed and potentially implemented as innovations that will improve our products and processes long term. In addition, with the industry’s focus on upskilling or reskilling team members, apprenticeships can help create a team with more diverse skills, creating a stronger workforce.

How Does an Apprenticeship Work?

The ability to conceive effective project management to meet deadlines, and communicate well with other engineers is an essential part of being a STEM apprentice. These, along with the required skills in IT, mathematics, and physics, are all areas that will be significantly developed during your time as an apprentice. To be a truly productive member of your team, you’ll need to analyse and adapt current processes to find more effective ways of completing your tasks.

You’ll achieve these by learning the trade skills from our more experienced staff and using them to complete day-to-day tasks. These will include:

• Shadowing
• Supervised work

Shadowing and supervised work are excellent learning tools that far surpass classwork. The benefits of hands-on learning of processes and tasks followed by completing them yourself under supervision cannot be understated for building a skills base as well as your initial confidence.

• Studying
• Assessment

The classroom study is then combined with practical research to reinforce the skills an apprentice will learn. Consisting of usually a couple of days a week, an apprentice will take the time to study the deep data of STEM roles. Assessments are an essential part of apprenticeships. Completing contextual exams on what you’ve learned and addressing supervisor feedback will help you fill those gaps in your knowledge and assist your growth into a successful STEM graduate.

Each year we offer excellent apprenticeships at European Springs. These are available for STEM students exploring their future as well as experienced staff wishing to reskill themselves into a new role. Thanks to our established development plans, we are committed to maintaining the highest quality learning experience for our successful applicants. During your time as an apprentice, you can earn while you learn about the manufacture of many products such as torsion springs and begin your journey into a profitable career as a member of the most successful industry in the UK.

You can learn more about the success of our apprenticeship schemes in our associate article.

 

 

The manufacturing sector has seen its share of changes over the last few years, but during this time, it has proven itself a resilient industry that can adapt to meet any challenge. Adaptability is essential for not just your business but your workforce; this is where apprenticeships thrive.

Despite the shifting nature of the manufacturing industry, one constant that’s becoming more apparent is that a profitable career in engineering is no longer limited to university graduates. Instead, apprenticeships have become an excellent route for critical thinkers and innovators interested in a career in STEM.

What is an Engineering Apprenticeship?

At European Springs, we host new apprenticeships every year. Engineering apprenticeships are essentially working courses that provide students interested in STEM the chance to gain hands-on knowledge and valuable experience required to become professional engineers. These courses are usually a mix of hands-on work alongside study modules to create the invaluable skill set required.

Different Types of Engineering Apprenticeships

Because of the large variety of roles applicable to a career in manufacturing, there isn’t one apprenticeship that can cover it all. Therefore, finding the right one to support your interest in STEM is a significant first step in your potential career. Here are some examples of the different apprenticeships a student could choose from.

Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeships

The skills acquired through a mechanical engineering apprenticeship are connected to several industries. Skills you can learn through this are welding, hydraulics, pneumatics, CAD design and CNC machining.

Manufacturing gains the most from mechanical engineers, such as transport with train engine repair, power for designing pumps for energy companies and here at European Springs as experienced tension spring manufacturers.

Engineering Environmental Technologies Apprenticeships

This is a relatively new area of engineering apprenticeship. This focus was developed to help combat the rising adverse effects of the industry on the environment. As a successful apprentice, it would be your responsibility to create innovations that make manufacturing, construction and building maintenance sectors more environmentally friendly. With the advances the manufacturing industry is making toward net-zero carbon emissions, the role of these engineers has never been more critical.

Manufacturing Engineering Apprenticeships

Manufacturing engineering apprentices have a choice of pathways. These can cover aerospace, marine, welding, technical support, and fabrication, such as torsion spring manufacturers. Of course, the tasks involved will vary depending on your chosen sector. Still, by selecting a manufacturing engineering apprenticeship, you open the doors to the many areas of STEM.

What to Expect From an Apprenticeship

As we mentioned earlier, hands-on experience is an essential part of any engineering apprenticeship. Observing valuable trade skills in use within a suitable working environment will have the most impact on the apprentice.

This education is done through the apprentice being partnered with an experienced staff member, who will teach skills such as accountability, planning and responsibility for the day-to-day tasks you’ll conduct once qualified.

Studying is an important part when working on an apprenticeship. While some consider the physical contributions the most impactful, maintaining a high level of study with theory is essential too. This may be just a couple of days a week, either at a partnered college or in-house with your fellow apprentices.

Shadowing and supervising work are some of the most effective parts of a manufacturing apprenticeship. By first shadowing your assigned staff member, you can practically learn the different aspects of the role in a more visual way than through study. Your shadowing will then be followed up by taking on those tasks under the supervision of experienced engineers. This is the best time to ask critical questions and build that all-important confidence through getting a taste of a STEM career.

Assessments with a supervisor are to be expected when working on an apprenticeship. Reviews are not a negative judgement of your performance but a vital element of learning the role with the benefit of providing someone who can answer any of your questions. After being regularly assessed for your current skills and job knowledge, you will usually complete coursework and exams as the final step to achieving your apprenticeship.

Benefits of Choosing European Springs Engineering Apprenticeships

As experienced spring manufacturers, we can attest to the benefits of taking on apprentices from an industry standpoint. Every year we take on new apprentices through our established development plans. We firmly believe that this helps give us a competitive edge in maintaining our status as a leading compression spring manufacturer. In addition, when companies take the time to invest in their staff through upskilling or reskilling, they can find that this training will create a far more diverse and effective team than persistent recruitment drives.

For the apprentices themselves, one standout benefit is the ability to learn whilst they earn. In addition, working toward a nationally-recognised qualification while simultaneously making a wage is hard to beat when investing in your future.

Increased Demand for Engineers

The manufacturing sector is currently struggling with a skills gap that creates problems for many manufacturing companies. At European Springs, we prioritise involving apprentices within the industry as we firmly believe that by supporting the next generation of engineers, we help individuals find great careers whilst supporting the industry.

If you are interested in exploring a new career in manufacturing, we recommend learning more about our apprenticeship schemes here. If you have any questions, please fill in the connected enquiry form, and we’ll be happy to answer any of your questions.

Manufacturing is a highly professional industry that requires its workers to earn particular qualifications, leading to the current skills gap shortage troubling the sector. Recruiting skilled engineers and other production team members is a constant issue to fill all the current vacancies, but there are ways to fix this.

What Is The Manufacturing Skills Gap?

The manufacturing industry plays a prominent role in the UK’s economy. With over 270 thousand businesses in the manufacturing sector across the UK, it’s recognised as one of the most significant contributors to the UK economy.

Any business needs to adapt to thrive and evolve, including STEM industries. By implementing intelligent technologies such as big data, cloud computing and industrial IoT, managers can more accurately optimise their work processes and identify those areas that need improvement.

The skills gap is partially due to the rapid advances in smart technologies and automation that are helping increase the efficiency of the industry. However, whilst investing in these new technologies is a great idea, many people do not have the experience or qualifications to use them.

Unfortunately, there are many working positions unfulfilled across manufacturing and other STEM sectors. These vacancies are known as the skills gap. The manufacturing skills gap is not just a buzzword for low employment numbers; it is, in fact, a complex reality that many spring manufacturers face as there are more open positions than applicants to fill them.

Manufacturers National Contribution

Pressing manufacturers such as ourselves are among the many companies in our sector to account for 9.7% of the total UK economic output in 2021 (gross value added). At the start of 2022, manufacturing output was 0.8% higher than the previous month but 1.6% below the beginning of 2020. All of this was achieved with this sector 7.3% of the jobs positions available in the UK.

Current State of The Industry

The British chamber of commerce, early this year, reported in their quarterly recruitment outlook that there are record highs in recruitment difficulties. In addition, 79% of companies shared that they have problems filling positions. Companies have reported a broad range of issues that have contributed to this, such as the effects of Brexit and the pandemic.

Head of people policy, Jane Gratton, believes that these results highlight the continuing difficulties employers face in accessing the skilled labour they need and that such a loss will impact the country’s economic recovery. For example, as more compression spring manufacturers struggle to fill their skills gap, it will create a knock-on effect on their ability to provide products. This effect will continue adding struggles to an already pressured supply chain battling supply and demand.

Upskilling Your Team

One short term solution to the skills gap problem is to upskill your current workforce. Re-training and developing new skills is an excellent way to grow your existing team and address those areas with gaps. Additionally, focusing on automating easier processes will free up those team members to address the more complex parts of your business.

Another practical method for filling skills gaps with upskilling is implementing personal development plans (or PDPs). These help companies set goals for each employee and encourage their development as they learn the skills required.

By upskilling your team to your new equipment and procedures, companies are building well-rounded, multi-skilled workforces capable of filling those missing positions and increasing their businesses’ overall efficiency.

Investing In Young People

At European Springs, we believe that investing in new engineers supports us and benefits the industry as a whole. In addition, by increasing awareness of the advantages of STEM careers to students through various existing programs and apprenticeship schemes, the talent pool will be increased dramatically.

Continuing to promote our excellent apprenticeships is crucial to us as a company. We offer incredible schemes that follow the mechanical manufacturing apprenticeship framework and award BTEC Level 3 certificates in Engineering operations and maintenance.

Filling The Skills Gap

The way manufacturing companies react to this labour shortage will be an essential factor in deciding the future of the manufacturing industry. In order to prosper, the sector must embrace the initiatives already in place to attract new skilled people to enjoy a profitable career in STEM.

Scholarships, bursaries, and apprenticeships are all fantastic ways of increasing this awareness and are proving to address the skills gap successfully. In addition, male and female postgraduates students can apply for funding opportunities that will help them explore a career in manufacturing or any other sector under STEM.

Brunel University in London offers a mentoring program called Women in Engineering and Computing (or WIBEC) that encourages and supports female graduates and undergraduates to begin a fulfilling career in manufacturing.

The UK is home to many prestigious universities well known for innovation, research and creativity. This has created a reputation for top-ranked UK universities globally and has been providing STEM education in many forms for centuries. In addition, this positive relationship between these institutions and manufacturing companies have created a supportive network for job hunting or apprenticeship applications that makes it much easier for employers to find people to fill their skills gaps.

At European Springs, we’re proud of our long-term commitment to support the manufacturing industry with our apprenticeship schemes. We firmly believe that these schemes are a way of investing both in people and in the industry, with each successful candidate having a positive effect on the sector as a whole.

The past few years have been a struggle for the manufacturing industry at large. Many companies found it difficult to cope with the supply chain issues, talent shortage and gender gap. Whilst it seems now that there is an end in sight to most of the problems caused by the pandemic, the gender gap remains.

In this blog, we’re discussing the need for more inclusivity in manufacturing and the career opportunities available for women.

Addressing the Gender Gap

As prominent spring manufacturers, we are aware of the unfortunate truth that, whilst 48% of women do actively participate in the labour market, they make up only 29% of the manufacturing workforce. Some have noted this as a consequence of occupational segregation limiting women’s career roles in manufacturing. 2021 Make UK’s reportstates that only 8% of women take up apprenticeships in manufacturing due to the impression that it’s not for them.

As disheartening as these numbers read, we at European Springs are one among many companies that are committed to changing this by creating a more inclusive community that welcomes both men and women to successful careers in manufacturing. Much like the bespoke pressings service we offer, we believe that, for this industry to survive, you can’t limit yourself to just one way of doing things; you need to be flexible and adaptable to thrive.

More employers have begun to search actively for new graduates to become apprentices. There is always a constant demand for highly skilled people in the manufacturing industry, so women interested in exploring this part of STEM are valued resources.

Advantages of Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships’ contributions to the economy have been growing over the last decade. The CEBR report on productivity correctly predicted that £3.4 billion of the UK economy was due to the increased productivity of 3.8 million people completing their apprenticeships.

Apprenticeship schemes are a great way to get a hands-on experience of a career and potentially learn things easy-to-miss in the classroom (or that are simply not taught there). In addition, the ability to shadow an experienced member of the team combined with the supervised work can help someone new gain confidence in what they are doing. Apprentices will take, on average, 1-4 years to become fully qualified, but you will also be paid for your work during this time.

There are advantages for the employer as well. For example, the UK government has recently implemented a new incentive payments scheme for hiring new apprentices. This limited-time initiative is available until May 2022 but substantially assists companies who help their industry by taking on new apprentices.

The apprenticeships we offer at European Springs follow a nationally recognised mechanical manufacturing apprenticeship framework that will award certification at BTEC level 3 in engineering operation and maintenance. An NVQ in mechanical manufacturing engineering accompanies this; for more information on our apprenticeship schemes, please contact us.

Other Opportunities for Women in Manufacturing

All across the UK, there has been an increase in scholarships and bursaries to assist women studying for manufacturing positions. Additionally, apprenticeships for all young people have increased, thereby making it easier than ever to start a profitable career in the industry.

Brunel University in London offers a prestigious program for its graduates and undergraduates called Women in Engineering and Computing (otherwise known as WiBEC). This mentoring program supports young women who wish to enter a STEM career in engineering and manufacturing. With over 600 female students benefiting from the impartial advice from their industry mentors since 2014, this is a prime example of how accessible manufacturing has become for women.

More improvements have been made in the manufacturing industry beyond study and apprenticeships. For example, it’s been reported that 67% of manufacturers currently have an EDI in place (which stands for equality, inclusion and diversity), with those EDI plans reviewed yearly. These improvements have led to women making up 29% of the manufacturing workforce in the UK and 18% of the company boards.

Engineering Apprenticeships for Women

As the most prominent compression spring manufacturer in the UK, European Springs wholeheartedly disagrees with the idea that manufacturing is a gender-limited occupation. We celebrate the 23^rd of June every year as National Women in Engineering Day (NWED) because we believe that everyone should feel welcome when choosing to work in the manufacturing industry.

Hopefully, this blog will help inspire some of you to follow your passion and pursue the career in manufacturing you deserve. For more details on our apprenticeship programs, please don’t hesitate to contact us, and one of our experts can answer all your questions.