Each day The Manufacturer compiles the top manufacturing news stories from around the web. To make your life a little easier, we trawl through all the major trade publications, broadsheets and business magazines to find you the most important manufacturing news each morning. Don't forget to bookmark this page and check back daily.
Business Secretary visits Aston Martin after announcing £9m to support 2,500 jobs
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has visited Aston Martin’s HQ in Warwickshire where she met with apprentices and senior leaders and learnt more about the company’s high-performance electrification strategy.
The visit comes after the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) announced almost £9m in government funding through the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) to develop Aston Martin’s EV technology – supporting over 2,500 local jobs.
The project will help accelerate the development of a luxury battery EV platform to drive forward a route to net zero, including vehicle light weighting, a digital toolchain and electrification training. Find out more at The Business Desk
CB Technology revenues increase 36% with significant growth in staff
Scotland’s largest independent electronics contract manufacturer, CB Technology, has delivered a 36% increase in turnover for 2022-23, taking its revenues to £14.3m.
CB Technology’s revenues have increased 500% since the successful management buy-in backed by Maven Capital Partners in 2015.
The Livingston-based electronics manufacturing service (EMS) provider remains on track to achieve its £20m turnover target by 2025. Over the last 18 months, CB Technology has continued to successfully diversify its manufacturing capability beyond its traditional energy sector involvement with the addition of new clients in communications, IoT, and the life sciences sectors. Find out more at The Manufacturer
FANUC signs global deal with Volvo
FANUC and Volvo Cars have signed a global contract that sets out a programme of robot supply to the automotive manufacturer’s plants across the globe. The contract will see FANUC provide industrial robots for all the various production shops included in a modern car manufacturing facility, including new battery production facilities in Europe, Asia and America.
In the first phase, FANUC will supply more than 700 robots to a planned new manufacturing site in Kosice, Slovakia, where Volvo Cars expects the first vehicles to roll off the production line in 2026. This facility will be Volvo Cars‘ first site exclusively manufacturing electric vehicles. During the same phase, FANUC will also supply sites in Ghent, Belgium, and Daqing, China. Find out more at FANUC
Airbus signs € 1.2bn in contracts for capability enhancement and in-service support of the French A330 MRTT fleet
Airbus Defence and Space has signed two contracts valued at € 1.2bn in total with France’s Direction générale de l’armement (DGA) and Direction de la Maintenance Aéronautique (DMAé) for the capability enhancement and the in-service support of the French A330 MRTTs (Multi Role Tanker Transport) fleet.
“We thank the French Ministry of Armed Forces for its continued trust in the Airbus A330 MRTT and we are honoured to contribute to one of France’s most strategic capabilities through this programme,” said Jean-Brice Dumont, Head of Military Air Systems at Airbus Defence and Space.
“With this new capability of the aircraft, we are preparing the future by transforming the MRTT into an in-flight communications node, as the first building block of the Multi Role Tanker Transport of tomorrow, embedded in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).” Find out more at Airbus
newcleo and LSE announce partnership to support energy economics and policy research
newcleo, the Gen-IV nuclear technology company, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) have signed a five-year partnership to conduct advanced research into the economics of energy policy.
The initial interim findings will be published next year and will assist governments across the world in making evidence-based policy decisions on how best to deliver efficient approach to clean and safe sustainable energy solutions. LSE will work to explore the economic benefits of technological innovation in facilitating the energy transition, driving clean economic growth and creating the good jobs of the future.
Global power generation needs to triple by 2050, and this partnership – the first of its kind for the LSE – will build a strong understanding of the most economically beneficial clean energy sources, as ongoing geopolitical events also continue to accelerate the need for both diversification and security of supply. Find out more at The Manufacturer
UK manufacturers handed millions in free carbon allowances for closed plants
CF Fertilisers, Ineos and Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel all awarded free carbon allowances for sites that have stopped operating.
Three big UK manufacturers won millions of pounds’ worth of free carbon emission allowances for factories that were mothballed or slashed production, highlighting loopholes in the British net zero regime.
The government granted nearly £46m of surplus free carbon credits to agricultural group CF Fertilisers and Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos for sites the companies then permanently closed. Embattled metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty Steel was also given surplus emissions allowances for a steel mill in Wales that was idled this year.
The findings by the Financial Times, based on data published by the government, raises questions over the UK’s management of its carbon market, where companies can sell surplus credits for profit. Find out more at The Financial Times
New digital marketplace for automotive manufacturers to sell 3D-printable car parts
An Innovate UK-backed start-up is to launch a ground-breaking digital marketplace for manufacturers to sell 3D-printable car parts.
Autentica Car Parts, based at Sci-Tech Daresbury, has developed a platform that allows OEMs, such as automotive designers and manufacturers, to sell spare parts designs to authorised dealers, distributors and repair centres.
The first-of-its-kind solution enables Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) backed blockchain-protected and certified design assets to be 3D printed on-demand locally. Find out more at The Manufacturer
Funding secured to enhance manufacturing’s IoT capabilities
A business support initiative, designed to boost the adoption of cyber secure Internet of Things (IoT) technologies among SMEs, has secured additional funding to reach more companies from across a range of sectors vital to the Scottish economy, including manufacturing.
IoT Secure – led by IoT experts at CENSIS, Scotland’s innovation centre for sensing, imaging and IoT technologies, offers cyber security workshops and one-to-one consultations to SMEs and start-ups with an interest in adopting IoT technologies.
Around 40 companies have benefited from the free initiative since it was launched in Spring 2020, with at least ten invited to take part in the next phase. The scheme will run until March 2024 after securing a funding extension from the Scottish Government. Find out more at The Manufacturer
GSK enters exclusive license agreement with Hansoh
GSK and Hansoh Pharma, Chinese biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering and developing life-changing medicines to help patients conquer serious diseases and disorders, announced that they have entered into an exclusive license agreement for HS-20089, a B7-H4 targeted antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) currently in phase I (NCT05263479) clinical trials in China.
Under the agreement, GSK will obtain exclusive worldwide rights (excluding China’s mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) to progress development and commercialisation of HS-20089.
Hesham Abdullah, SVP, Global Head Oncology, R&D, GSK, said: “Given early clinical data, we believe that HS-20089 has best-in-class potential in ovarian and endometrial cancer with opportunities in other solid tumours. This agreement is in line with our approach to advancing novel treatment options for patients with gynaecologic cancers.”
In addition to targeting the B7-H4 surface antigen, which is overexpressed in ovarian and endometrial cancers and is often associated with poor prognosis, HS-20089 utilises clinically validated ADC technologies such as a topoisomerase inhibitor (TOPOi) payload.1 TOPOi is a validated mechanism of action in approved anti-cancer medicines and a proven standard of care in the treatment of breast and ovarian cancers. Find out more at GSK
Shaping a balanced manufacturing landscape: The Changing Perceptions conference
While women make up approximately half of the UK’s labour force, they only represent 26% of the manufacturing sector. Gender stereotypes and norms continue to segregate men and women into distinct roles and industries. This under-representation extends to leadership positions, influencing decision-making and organisational performance.
A new ‘Changing Perceptions’ conference, led by the Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge (IfM) and Innovate UK’s Made Smarter Innovation programme, has been launched with support from the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, InterAct Hub and Lloyds Banking Group. It is part of a series of activities organised by the Women in Manufacturing Initiative, a network of industrial and academic professionals with a shared interest in encouraging diversity and inclusion in the sector.
The event will take place at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry on 31 October. Find out more at The Manufacturer
