Manufacturing Matters - Presidential Address 2022

Dick Philbrick

I was distracted from a career as an engineer, but not as a manufacturer. I could not help but compare how farmers and their farm workers, in the Suffolk village where I was born, collaborated in hard work with the poor management, lousy productivity and working relations of the shipyard where I trained. There were numerous strikes, sabotage and demarcation disputes between unions, but excellent craft skills in the shipyard. I sought answers to the demise of UK manufacturing in other industries and countries.

In this article I:

1. describe the avoidable collapse of UK manufacturing.

2. trace, from personal experience, the silent death of Europe’s then largest mobile crane

maker.

3. describe commercial lessons learned in starting an engineering company.

4. explain how many of the technical mistakes we made in the start-up might have been

avoided.

5. argue the case for how we can achieve collaborative working.