The industry-led productivity and competitiveness improvement programme, Sharing in Growth, has now helped UK aerospace suppliers win orders worth more than £3.4bn - almost a third of which was achieved in 2018.
The £3.4bn total is equivalent to 30,000 man years‘ work or securing 5,500 high-value UK aerospace jobs, according to Sharing in Growth.
The programme, which is funded by private and public sector contributions, is so successful that it’s reportedly providing a 60:1 return on public investment, with most companies on the programme growing at five-times the rate of their industry peers.
Companies who have increased their competitiveness and secured new contracts, include:
- Castle Precision who signed a contract valued at £80m with Rolls-Royce on a six-year programme, the biggest order ever won by the Glasgow firm.
- Dundee’s ATL who secured more than £7m in new contracts and who are currently planning significant investments in new product development, increased capacity and additional jobs.
- JJ Churchill of Leicestershire who signed a turbine blades contract exceeding £70m with Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace.
- South Lanarkshire-based Martin Aerospace which just secured a three-year agreement with Rolls-Royce
- TMD Technologies of West London who received a £2m overseas order for travelling wave tubes for an airborne search and rescue radar application.
- Produmax, from West Yorkshire, have improved productivity by almost 40%, won three new customers and increased turnover by 55% since joining the programme in 2014.
- Amphenol Invotec, which has plants in Tamworth and Telford, manufacturing time critical and advanced technology PCBs, and have secured more than £40m in contracts since joining Sharing in Growth in 2014.
- Winbro Group Technologies, headquartered in Leicestershire, which manufacture non-conventional machine tools, and turbine engines components, joined Sharing in Growth in 2014 and have since opened a new plant, secured more than £60m in contracts and created more than 70 new jobs.
In 2018, Sharing in Growth delivered more than 700,000 training hours and continued to develop and innovate the programme in line with the demands of global competitiveness.
This included adding an on-line hub to reinforce learning; a new directory of engineering innovation partners who can provide training in areas such as additive manufacturing and automation; and the introduction of a Team Leader Training Academy to develop the next generation of highly talented leadership.
CEO of Sharing in Growth, Andy Page, commented: “Tackling the UK’s lagging productivity is a multi-faceted challenge that requires commensurate scale and intensity, particularly as the advanced manufacturing sector faces the challenges of industrial digitalisation and Brexit.
“Investment in new technology or capital equipment per se will not improve productivity, especially where leadership and management is weak. Sharing in Growth is creating a virtuous growth cycle in our learning and skills community where improved productivity and competitiveness wins contracts which, in turn, provides the funds to invest in people, technology and growth to win even more business.”
There are more than 60 companies on the Sharing in Growth programme across the UK. Each company participates in a bespoke and intense training and business transformation programme which focuses on leadership, culture and operational capability delivered by SiG’s own 100-strong team of business coaches, supported by a bank of world-leading experts including The University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, Deloitte, and the National Physical Laboratory.
What is Sharing in Growth?
Set up by industry in 2012, Sharing in Growth is endorsed by Airbus, BAE Systems, Boeing, Bombardier, GE, GKN, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, MBDA, Rolls-Royce, Safran and Thales.
Its aim is to help the UK advanced manufacturing supply chain to become more competitive and win a larger share of global aerospace contracts, typically by addressing a 20% cost gap and targeting 50% productivity improvement.
In 2018, Sharing in Growth won the national Semta Innovation Award for improving the capability and productivity of more than 10,000 people working in the aerospace supply chain.
There are limited places left on the government-supported programme. Companies interested in how Sharing in Growth can improve their competitiveness and productivity should click here.