New government-backed programme to improve UK manufacturing competitiveness and productivity is open for business; new “NMCL” approach has been successfully piloted by companies in the North West of England.
A £16 million programme to help make the UK’s advanced automotive manufacturing supply chain more competitive was launched by Business Secretary, Greg Clark, last week (April 5th 2019). SMMT Industry Forum – the organisation set up by the UK government, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and vehicle manufacturers to improve the competitiveness of the UK’s automotive supply chain – is to play an important role in the new initiative.
The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Levels (NMCL) programme, is funded by the government as part of its Industrial Strategy, and Automotive Sector Deal, and has been jointly developed by the automotive and aerospace sectors. It aims to assess and improve competitiveness, raise workforce capacity and increase productivity of all types of UK manufacturers.
Along with other national providers SMMT Industry Forum will support the programme by helping companies understand how they can develop their business to become more competitive and win more orders. SMMT Industry Forum already has a successful track record in this area, including improvement delivery in the government-funded Long Term Automotive Supply Chain Competitiveness (LTASC) programmes which created and safeguarded jobs, trained people and leveraged £41m private investment. It has also been involved in piloting the new NMCL model in the North West of England.
NMCL is designed to help manufacturers of all sizes and stages of development understand how competitive they currently are and develop the specific business capabilities they need to boost their performance. The programme includes an in-depth competitiveness assessment based on company capabilities and the views of key customers. This data is then applied to investment decisions across six areas of competitiveness; quality, cost, delivery, flexibility, products/technology and customer experience. Projects are tailor-made for each manufacturer and focus on boosting competitiveness, increasing ‘value-add’ and winning more orders. Companies can undertake 6 month focussed improvement projects through to multi-year company transformations depending on their potential and ambition.
Organisations can register their interest to take part in the NMCL programme by completing by completing a short questionnaire on the NMCL website.
Image – The NMCL project team at Unilathe.
Image – Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has announced the selection of the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Levels (NMCL) programme as the mechanism to deliver the government’s national supplier competitiveness and productivity improvement initiative, as outlined in the government’s Industrial Strategy.
Established in 1996 by the UK government, the SMMT and vehicle manufacturers to improve the competitiveness of the UK’s automotive supply chain. It has more than 150 cross sector industry specialists and is active in 30 countries. It has delivered over 400 competitiveness and productivity programmes and trained over 25,000 people over the past 20 years. Over the last four years, the Automotive Council has run its Long-Term Automotive Supply Chain Competitiveness (LTASC) programme through SMMT Industry Forum where it has worked with over 70 automotive supply chain companies, large and small, to upskill hundreds of employees, boost productivity, deliver new products to market, leverage more than £75m of private investment in CAPEX, skills and R&D, and is set to create and safeguard more than 3,800 jobs. SMMT Industry Forum has also been the largest provider of knowledge and expertise to deliver the aerospace industry’s Sharing in Growth (SiG) programme.