The myth of Britain's manufacturing decline

[NoddY]

The problem with manufacturing is that you can't make stuff that doesn't exist. Unlike finance.

[Paddy]

I think (but not totally sure) it is legitimate so long as majority of costs of the thing is local

I would not laugh at Germany though - they still make plenty of good cars and they are top exporter after China. See it can actually be done and they did it.

100 labels £9

Buy 100 teeshirts from China at 50p each. Sew a " Made in UK" label on in the UK cost 25p Sell shirts at £5 each. This is UK manufacturing.

[AtW]

100 labels £9

Buy 100 teeshirts from China at 50p each. Sew a " Made in UK" label on in the UK cost 25p Sell shirts at £5 each. This is UK manufacturing.

Looks like minestrone is right after all - UK manufacturing has become niche but did not disappear. Rule Britannina, innit?

[Doggy Styles]

There probably has been a decline in numbers but the lost jobs were generally low skilled low trained jobs. It is impossible for us to compete at high labour manufacturing when our labour costs are about the highest in the world.

Manufacturing is high tech in this country again, it made that change in the 80s.

I agree.

My brother in law started a high-tech, light engineering company six years ago. Fab product which customers wanted, but he couldn't get funding in the UK.

He finally got funding, from Holland. Now he does the design, development and prototypes over here, they do the manufacturing over there. It works very well, but he only employs three other people in the UK.

[TinTrump]

That's ******* what they mean by gone - when things are invented in this country but they have to be purchased at great expense, like tilting trains for example.

It just so happens I worked at a UK train plant where we assembled the WCML Pendolinos, tilting trains using Italian systems. Much of the traction and electronic equipment was UK made, however. The factory dated from around 1880 if I recall correctly and had also built tanks in WW2.

One problem was government funding of rail infrastructure lead to periods of feast and famine, and during the lean times the workforce was reduced to a mere handful. The quality staff seldom returned. What I witnessed was projects valued in the £100Ms where project management was poor and engineering control inadequate; try building a product that was only 80% design complete after prototyping. I found contract engineers the worst; seemingly content that they had to revise their designs 10x after protoyping to get it right, leading to huge issues in prod times and costly retrofit. The consequence was the ratio of white collar staff to assembly staff was about 1:1, with change management a major issue. Totally wrong.

Our product was delivered late and reliability was a problem. Due to shrewd terms of contract (penalty clauses) Virgin probably got the Pendolinos at cost as we missed one deadline after another.

As one of my colleagues said to me at the time, would I invest my money in that plant? Er, no. It closed in 2004.

[Mich the Tester]

It just so happens I worked at a UK train plant where we assembled the WCML Pendolinos, tilting trains using Italian systems.

Another bwilliant Bwitish invention as Chwis Bawwie might say.

The pendolino was built on the concept of BR's APT, which was scrapped after being implemented too early. The press had a field day after the tilting mechanism failed a couple of times and the politicians pulled out, just as the issue had been sorted. A great shame, just like many other British inventions that ended up overseas.

But maybe there's a lesson in this. Maybe, instead of being upset about the great British inventions like jet engines, tilting trains, MRI scanners etc etc which are all made abroad, maybe the Brits need to accept that we're not really very good at mass manufacturing and we should stick to what we ARE good at (or at least have historically been good at); inventing and designing brilliant stuff, and producing it in small amounts then selling the concept abroad. The only limit to the economic returns is the ability to keep on innovating.

[minestrone]

So, it did not "go", just turned from massive production lines (surely meaning employing more people) to "niche" skills, meaning employing less people?

I was chatting to an Egyptian stonemason this morning, he was moaning about the decline of the industry in Egypt, millions of people used to work in it he says.

He now exports marble all over the world and it is used to finish the finest hotels but he would rather stick a loin cloth on and go and cut blocks in the desert with the rest of the country just like the good old days.

[AtW]

I was chatting to an Egyptian stonemason this morning, he was moaning about the decline of the industry in Egypt, millions of people used to work in it he says.

He is right - ever since they've finished the Pyramids employment levels dropped.

[Mich the Tester]

He is right - ever since they've finished the Pyramids employment levels dropped.

So the solution for unemployment is massive earth moving projects. Why not employ millions of people to move Ben Nevis and Scafell to the south of England and put them on top of each other to create a ski resort? You could line people up to pass rocks down the line, house them in one long street stretching from London to the highlands and feed them on oatmeal and gruel. This could provide full employment for 1000 years!

Stalinist economics to the rescue again!

[Churchill]

Another bwilliant Bwitish invention as Chwis Bawwie might say.

The pendolino was built on the concept of BR's APT, which was scrapped after being implemented too early. The press had a field day after the tilting mechanism failed a couple of times and the politicians pulled out, just as the issue had been sorted. A great shame, just like many other British inventions that ended up overseas.

But maybe there's a lesson in this. Maybe, instead of being upset about the great British inventions like jet engines, tilting trains, MRI scanners etc etc which are all made abroad, maybe the Brits need to accept that we're not really very good at mass manufacturing and we should stick to what we ARE good at (or at least have historically been good at); inventing and designing brilliant stuff, and producing it in small amounts then selling the concept abroad. The only limit to the economic returns is the ability to keep on innovating.

That won't support a population of 60 million though.