The Manufacturer Podcast

Nick Peters speaks to Mike Hawes, the CEO of the automotive trade body SMMT, about the blizzard of challenges facing the UK automotive supply chain. From OEM to Tier 3, no one is exempt from the political, regulatory and technological upheavals facing the industry. For some, the challenge is existential. They simply might not survive.

Before Sir David McMurtry invented the touch trigger probe, it was extremely difficult for engineers to measure anything non-linear. He was working on the Olympus engines for Concorde at the time, in 1972 - which means that before then the accuracy of engineering on Concorde, and everything else, could only be calculated using a slide-rule, an invention of the 18th century. Sir David went on to fo...

It's one of the toughest challenges in the UK economy - encouraging small companies to grow into the powerhouse-medium sized companies that are such a feature of successful industrial economies like Germany. It is happening at JJ Churchill, a small-sized aerospace company - it supplies parts to Rolls-Royce plc and jet engine makers worldwide - that is growing into a medium-sized company, through a...

Brian Holliday is MD of Siemens Digital Industries in the UK. Here he talks to Nick Peters about how he and his team harnessed the power of digital manufacturing technologies to develop world- and competition-beating products. He also talks about failing German and technology at O Level (he failed German!), why he decided against university, but found redemption - and a career - in an apprenticesh...

Confidence in elected politicians is at an all-time low - certainly within living memory - thanks to Brexit. In this podcast Nick and his guest Chris White, who knows a thing or two about how cruel politics can be, discuss why manufacturers must press politicians of all stripes not to let a positive industrial strategy for the UK fall foul of petty tribalism.  

  The launch of the Made Smarter Commission’s £20m North West Pilot last year is now bearing fruit. The project, which is designed to encourage, inform and assist smaller manufacturers into the process of adopting digital manufacturing technologies, has now appointed a chair of the Pilot steering board, whose job it will be to monitor progress of this vital initiative. Vital, because on its s...

In this episode, Nick Peters meets Jim McColl, engineer, entrepreneur, passionate Scotsman and the man intent on breathing new life into shipbuilding in the UK. McColl was born on the Clyde and served his engineering apprenticeship there, before embarking on a career that led him to establish Clyde Blowers Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on reviving under-invested or failing engineerin...

What can you say about a man whose drive to tell young people from primary school upwards that manufacturing is a great career is completely off the scale, except, Wow!  Ian Green, Senior Controller of the Nissan Skills Foundation, could have been one of this country's top engineers/manufacturers, but Fate - in the form of an accident -  had other ideas, so all that energy, all that crea...

During the course of the Annual Manufacturing Conference in February, the organisers EEF announced a change of name, a change of brand and a more sharply defined mission that they say will make them more attuned to the needs of the modern age of digital manufacturing. And thus EEF became Make UK. It wasn't the only item on the agenda. Brexit hung like a dark cloud over proceedings as delegates lis...

Duncan Jones grew up in America dreaming of designing cars. As a young man he chose to become an architect instead, but just as he was embarking on his professional career designing buildings, he was sent to Bolton, Lancashire, to build the family business. Today his company, Philadelphia Scientific , is the biggest and best of its type in Europe, and Duncan is enjoying a level of satisfaction as...

Six years ago, Sanjeev Gupta stepped in where many brave business people have tried and failed. His mission? To make steel manufacturing in the UK profitable once again. And he is succeeding. In this podcast, he talks to Nick Peters about how even his closest executives thought he was "obsessed" with making his first investment in the shut-down steel plant at Newport work. Despite "burning mo...

Even the biggest companies - some would say especially the biggest companies - have to seek help with complex problems that require academic rigour or collaboration with more agile, disruptive companies, qualities they may not have the focus or resources to provide for themselves. Nick Peters discussed this at the Smart Factory Expo 2018 with Jim Sibson of Babcock International Group.

Nick Peters was interviewed by Ed Bowsher on Lovesport Radio April 2018

Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit 2017

Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017

Design thinking as a way to improve your manufacturing performance

 Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017 

Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017

 Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017 

 Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017 

 Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017

  Recorded during the Manufacturing Leaders Summit in Liverpool 2017