Hydraulics & Pneumatics January/February 2023

BOARDROOM REPORT 26 HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS January/February 2023 www.hpmag.co.uk makes the point that many OEM suppliers were forced east by their customers to drive down cost. “This may have been a great opportunity in the early 2000s, however, due to strengthening currency in countries such as China, rapid wage rises and volatile fuel and commodity pricing, companies have been reshoring in recent years,” he says. “This will clearly not result in the moving of all demand back to the UK, but much of it will be closer to home. Lead times along with working capital costs will certainly reduce. Driving reshoring to the UK, however, needs to be incentivised or assisted. Because of bureaucracy and some bewildering political decisions since Brexit, this has not helped the situation. I think UKCA is a perfect example of unnecessary red tape and cost.” Butcher adds that the UK is overflowing with technical and engineering excellence together with an abundance of talent. “The manufacturing industry in the UK employs over 2.5 million people and generated £183 billion in revenue in 2022,” he explains. “That positioned us as the ninth largest manufacturing nation in the world. Onshoring still needs to be cost competitive, and this must be a focus of government. Government should also support the effort to educate and train people to fill such jobs. The UK is still respected globally as a technology and manufacturing nation.” Jones believes that, in a world of constantly changing legislation and standards, it pays to work with a supplier that can offer the right levels of support, backed by engineering and technical expertise. “As the only UK technical trade association open to manufacturers, distributors and end users of compressors, vacuum pumps, pneumatic tools and allied products, it is an approach we have always advocated – helping to connect our members with industry end-users to help specify, install, maintain and service their equipment,” she says. “Therefore, to help further strengthen its support for manufacturers and suppliers across the UK’s engineering market, BCAS has continued to work with Reshoring UK and its other industrial engineering partners. Our partnership with Reshoring UK is helping our member businesses source the right engineering expertise, that can help avoid downtime, save costs and maintain the highest safety standards. Among some of the opportunities offered are: Connecting manufacturers with trusted, accredited UK suppliers, especially those considering domestic production for new projects or when relocating other work programmes onshore. Helping shorten supply chains in the UK, easing parts’ delivery and enabling faster service. Considering dual sourcing (where local sourcing may not be entirely possible) to mitigate for any negative future impacts. Anderton explains that Slack & Parr’s new, purpose-built factory and headquarters in the village of Kegworth, Derbyshire, has been open for almost two years and sits adjacent to the site the company worked from for more than 100 years. “Before taking the decision to make this investment and commitment to our future here in the UK, we had a real opportunity to move production and maintenance overseas,” he says. “We chose to stay for several reasons, but mostly because the pool of engineers we recruit from here is so rich. We’re situated at the point where three counties – Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire – meet. In the last century, our presence here has supported and benefitted from a community of engineering families – some with three or even four generations of family members working at Slack & Parr. “For a business manufacturing very high precision technologies, that level of skill, knowledge and commitment is irreplaceable. Ultimately, it’s this that sustains our business and upholds the quality of our products and our reputation in the market. A century here has allowed us to build the sort of engineering community that is impossible to replicate anywhere else.” Loeffler explains that Jubilee Clips has never actively sourced from the Far East and has remained Europe or UK focused. “Most of what we source comes from UK- based suppliers,” he says. “Nothing really comes from the Far East except for the occasional hand tools, which we source from Taiwan. Some suppliers who sourced from the Far East were understandably having difficulties during COVID.” Increasing precision What are our commentators’ predictions for the next year or two concerning technological developments or market trends? Anderton says Slack & Parr is seeing first-hand how technological refinement in the form of increasing precision is expanding what can be achieved in the fluid power sector and making fluid power technologies relevant in a wider variety of applications. “In our case, the launch of the FDRX and FDLX flow dividers in late 2022 is helping to broaden our share of the high- performance market,” he says. “The technology offers divisional accuracy greater than 1%, which makes it a viable and more cost-effective alternative to linear transducers and proportional valves.” Rubinstein believes there will be even more innovation in lower carbon products, looking at the whole lifecycle approach. “For example, more compressors using VSD technology will be launched in the next couple of years,