IORMA Webinar: Reshoring – Manufacturing locally
The need to strengthen and simplify UK engineering supply chains by reshoring aspects of production has been a major topic of industry debate for decades: arguably since the very point that manufacturers began outsourcing production to more competitively priced overseas economies.
View the video of the webinar here:
In recent years – as the value of actually making things has begun to sink in – efforts to beef up UK supply chains and encourage manufacturers to favour domestic production have gathered momentum.
But the pandemic has now turbocharged these arguments by exposing the frailties of many of our supply chains and bringing home in tragic detail just how reliant we have become on the overseas supply of strategically critical items. And there is now growing momentum behind the argument to re-establish UK production of these parts and protect SME manufacturing.
Is this a realistic, or even a sensible aim? We have four speakers who are passionate about the need to rebuild UK supply chains, connecting manufacturers with trusted, accredited suppliers capable of delivering products and services that match their requirements.
Contributors
Julia Moore CEO of GTMA and Reshoring UK which represents a collaboration of industrial organisations connecting Manufacturers to the engineering skills’ resource available in the UK.
James Stephens, Director Government & Corporate Affairs, Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. Since August 2015, he has been responsible for government affairs, corporate social responsibility and stakeholder relations for Aston Martin Lagonda worldwide.
Roger Willison-Gray, Corporate Relations Director, IORMA. Roger is a serial company turnaround professional, with over twenty five years’ experience managing enterprise change through successful digital transformation.
Moderator
Beverley Nielsen, Executive Director, Institute of Design and Economic Acceleration (IDEA) at Birmingham City University. She has previously worked as a director for AGA Rangemaster, and as managing director for Fired Earth.
Should the pandemic trigger a major reshoring strategy? Is this an unrealistic given the low overseas costs that drove us to offshore in the first place? Perhaps you think that supply chains – in the face of a potentially once in a century health crisis – have proved to be resilient enough, just. Or should we consider a more nuanced approach, where we ensure we have the domestic capability to produce the kind of critical components and equipment that have been in such short supply in recent weeks -medicines, PPE, chemicals for testing, car components, essential food and even loo rolls.