< Previous East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORT 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:21 Page 1www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORT © stock.adobe.com/meryll B y all accounts the East Midlands should be more of a logistics powerhouse than it currently is. By its very name it sits square in the middle of the country, and it has excellent links to rail, road, sea and air via numerous ports, airports and motorways. The foundation is in place for the region to become a powerhouse, and yet foundations alone cannot transform a sector. The logistical companies currently operating in the region are doing well, including Derby-based logistics provider Viking Transport Ltd, who last month won a national award for their contribution to the industry. There’s no doubt that the potential is there, but it has long been the lack of meaningful investment and poor handling of existing problems that has held the region back. The availability of warehouse space has been a limiting factor for years, and while new developments are appearing all the time the speed at which these are snapped up does little to solve the problem. Speculative builds generate interest and have been a constant for over ten years, but without large-scale investment the industry hasn’t had the room to really flex its muscles. That isn’t to say there aren’t developments in the pipeline, however. Winvic Construction Ltd’s development of a new state-of-the- art multi-modal logistics hub in the Midlands, which is expected to create around 7,500 new jobs, has achieved a number of key milestones and remains on schedule. They commenced construction work at Big opportunities There are big investments on the horizon for the East Midlands logistics sector, but how robust is the infrastructure, and can the pool of recruitable candidates justify more? 32 Á 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:21 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORT SEGRO Logistics Park Northampton, a five million square feet modern, warehousing and logistics hub alongside a dedicated 35-acre Strategic Rail Freight Interchange, in early 2020. The strategic rail freight interchange will connect to the West Coast Mainline via the Northampton loop line and will encourage the increase of sustainable movement of freight by rail. On-site rail works will continue through the winter period and Network Rail will be working on-site to connect the Northampton loop to the mainline. As part of SEGRO’s commitment to investing over £200 million into local infrastructure, improvement works have now been completed to the M1 Junction 15 upgrade, the A508 and the A45, which have improved access and traffic flow. The overall infrastructure scheme, being delivered in partnership with National Highways, Network Rail and local authorities, is anticipated to be fully complete at the beginning of 2024. Big developments like this mark good news for the region and hint at the possibility for a resurgence in the logistics sector within the East Midlands. Large- scale investment in the region may become more likely following the results of devolution, where local regions can have more say on what they do and offer to attract investment. That said, while the creation of jobs and space and infrastructure is absolutely vital and certainly worth celebrating, it’s worth keeping in mind that many of the technical jobs created by the investment might be difficult to fill. The shortage of trained workers within the sector has not lessened in recent years, and the rise in fuel costs and the cost of living certainly has not helped. The fact remains that future investments will depend on available workforce, and that if investors sense that there are not enough available workers for the customers who might buy or rent their space, then they will be incentivised to look elsewhere. While logistics firms are doing their best to lobby to younger audiences to try and get more people interested in the industry, it’s hard to know how effective this has been. Shocking new research published nationally suggested that 25% of young people feel they are not prepared to enter the workforce, up to and including having no idea what they want to be. While it’s naïve to say that is 25% of young people the logistics industry can be targeting, they can at least aim for a portion of that number. The fact is that school visits and talks to students won’t do anything to change minds. It didn’t when we were younger and won’t now. Children will see it as a free day from lessons and that alone. To really make a difference it may be more important to talk to people of the age of 14-16, and stress real-world things like the pay, the work, and the opportunities – and then to get them interested by offering to involve them in operations and let them see first-hand what the job 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:21 Page 3www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link LOGISTICS AND TRANSPORT © stock.adobe.com/offcaania will entail. All too often is “reaching out to the youth” seen as something one does maybe once per generation, standing in front of a class of distracted children and talking about things they can’t really grasp and haven’t had to think about yet. On the other hand, there is another easily accessible demographic in female workers. Women are woefully underrepresented in the logistics sector and aiming to make the workforce more inclusive for them is not just to meet goals of inclusivity, but to open up a pool of new recruits. There is obviously a lot of work to be done, but the recruits are there if people can only improve on reaching them. Perhaps what the sector means when it says, “there is no one to hire” is more “it’s harder to find the people I could hire.” Loughborough-based Flotec to upgrade an entire fleet of trains for the UK’s second largest operator Train Operator, Northern plays a vital role in helping tens of thousands of people reach their various destinations every single day. The Northern maintenance team were aware that more could be done to improve the efficiency and reliability to its fleet of DMU trains and approached potential suppliers to develop an innovative engineering solution. Loughborough-based manufacturer Flotec, pitched a successful proposal and in late 2022 was awarded a multi-million-pound contract to modify the complete fleet of Northern 15x class trains. The modification focuses on the engine cooling system as well as hydrostatic and coolant hoses. The first train fleet upgrade was completed in October 2022 with the entire fleet of Northern ‘legacy’ trains to be finished before the end of this year. The system enhancements will help reduce fleet downtime, increase vehicle efficiency, and reduce emissions. Ultimately, a more reliable and environmentally friendly service will be provided to the passengers who rely on the Northern network. For more information visit www.flotecindustrial.co.uk/rail 30-33.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:21 Page 4 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk TAX The benefits of a more optimistic approach to business in 2023 James Pinchbeck, partner at Streets Chartered Accountants, considers the importance of optimism for businesses. I t is widely recognised and reported that business confidence declined during 2022, with the start of 2023 perhaps seeing little in the way of renewed confidence. The continued conflict in Ukraine, the continued aftershock of Brexit and the rising costs of living impact in one way or another on business optimism. Perhaps then business leaders, more than ever, need to focus on the importance of optimism as a state of mind, and the impact it has on the realisation of strategy, performance and success. Whilst not the most typical starting point for strategic planning or a key management approach, thought ought to be given to the impact of understanding what a sense of optimism has on your business and not least your workforce and should not be underestimated. In essence optimism is an inclination to hopefulness and confidence, and the future success of something or something being better. All this probably sounds rather intangible, something difficult to really grasp or manage. Where would one start in terms of being optimistic and creating a sense of optimism? Well, it might be that you take time out to ascertain the level of optimism for and within your business. Such an approach should at least enable you to benchmark where you are on the optimism scale and help you to identify areas that you may need to address. This may include consideration of the overall future success and prospects for the business as well as the roles of individuals. It is not always the case that the two are necessarily aligned. For example, whilst someone might feel optimistic about the prospects for the business, they may feel less optimistic about their personal role, and vice versa. Ideally both need to be favourably aligned. With an understanding and appreciation of your organisation’s sense of optimism you can then look to working on those areas that will improve or enhance the optimism. This could include a number of things such as a more positive leadership style, clearer and better defined and better communicated business objectives, the provision of new working practices, staff training, addressing hard to fill roles, job security, career prospects and progression for individual staff. The key though will be to ensure a level of optimism that does not drop, in fact if anything it increases. There will therefore be a need to monitor performance and adapt and react to changing circumstances. Undoubtedly this will draw on your own resolve, energy and motivation. To finish on a level of optimism, the benefits of creating a heightened level of optimism for and within your business can contribute to improved productivity, an enhanced ability to deal with challenges and great resilience and wellbeing, along with improved staff retention and recruitment. Who therefore wouldn’t make 2023 the year to focus on improving the level of optimism within their organisation? 34-35.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:22 Page 134-35.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:22 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY IN MANUFACTURING © stock.adobe.com/Pugun & Photo Studio Line 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:23 Page 1www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY IN MANUFACTURING W hen it comes to productivity and efficiency in the manufacturing line, one aspect that many people fail to consider is that of line clearance and efficiency. Simply put, line clearance is the time it takes to empty a line of completed products and get it working again. This is less about a robot moving product off the line, and more about quality control, safety checks and the like. It can also refer to when a product line shifts over from one product to another. For instance, many factories nowadays work on multiple products – a good example being FMCG with different recipes for different foods, etc. The transition period between clearing the line of one product and then altering the recipe, changing batches, making sure it’s all set to make the new product, is a period of down-time that can cost a company millions over the course of a year. The reason this is so problematic is that much of line clearance is still done by human hands. Automation has quite often focused on making products be manufactured quicker, and packaging them quicker, but then falling behind when it comes to quality control. Part of this is because making a robot that screws a cap on a bottle of pop is easier than making one that accurately scans it It’s no good having a fast production line if it takes too long to check and approve the finished goods, or to switch the line over to a new batch. 38 Á 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:23 Page 2 East Midlands Business Link www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY IN MANUFACTURING for any imperfections and particles, but it’s also a case of this part of a line being overlooked. It’s not uncommon to still see workers looking over hundreds or thousands of products on a line, turning them over one by one to make sure no packaging is ripped and no foreign material has found their way inside. This is a slow process by any means, and also a risky one as humans are prone to losing focus when repeating the same task over and over, and human error remains one of the big problems leading to product recalls. As line clearance is an oft-overlooked part of manufacturing, it also becomes one in which great savings can be made – and these go beyond simply making a line quicker. If clearance and set-up of a new product line is enhanced, then a factory can take on a wider product portfolio, pumping out extra batches or even an extra product entirely. This allows companies to make their existing assets work harder for them and save on investment in new factories – which can be expensive both in financial terms and also in time. A proper factory can take up to five years to be completed, and then will require new staff and training. Being able to enhance existing lines to take on more products saves on all of this. In terms of making line clearance and new line set-up as efficient as possible it’s best to fully embrace Industry 4.0 and digitalisation. If quality control and assurance is taken care of by vision inspection machines, then these can flood a line and be used at every stage to flag and highlight defective product, which can then be quickly and easily removed by employees. This is easier if products are serialised, because the machine and database can then reference © stock.adobe.com/Seventyfour 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:23 Page 3www.eastmidlandsbusinesslink.co.uk East Midlands Business Link PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY IN MANUFACTURING the defective serial number with a quick scan and highlight where it is kept, saving further time. In addition, this can then be backtracked if there is any foreign material in a food product for instance, to identify if that happened in the factory or if it was a problem when the raw material came in. It can even identify every potentially contaminated product in the batch served by that material, and flag them for removal. The amount of time this can save is staggering, and it can also be applied to line set-up when a factory line needs to work on a new product. Traditionally, everything needs to be changed by hand when lines are switching, which is a time- consuming exercise, but a smart factory system can use pre-programmed templates for different products, and alter checkweighers, conveyors and packaging machines to suit the new product. This not only makes change over quicker and easier, but also removes another potential point for human error, as a single missed decimal place on a food ingredient, or a forgotten spool of packaging changed on a child’s toy, could lead to an entire batch of flawed product that needs to be scrapped. Industry 4.0 and digitalisation is by no means new, but it is being adopted far too slowly in our region – and in our country. The technology has been a staple in China for the longest time, which is why Chinese products are being produced cheaper and more efficiently than things here in the EU. With countries – especially ours – wanting to become more independent however, there will be renewed focus on protecting the UK’s manufacturing sector, and it will be up to ours to adopt and adapt these new technologies or be left behind. © stock.adobe.com/vladimirnenezic 36-39.qxp_Layout 1 06/01/2023 10:23 Page 4Next >