How can we understand what it takes to manufacture the products that define our present - and our future - if we don't study the materials that go into them and where they come from? That's the question that drove Ed Conway, Economics and Data Editor at Sky News, to research and write MATERIAL WORLD, one of the top-selling business books of the last year. But what started as a project driven by intellectual curiosity ended up forcing him to question the fundamentals of economic and industrial policy that have been taken for granted for decades in the UK - and to fear for our national security unless a serious reappraisal of those policies is carried out.

In 2023 a new conference landed called Women With Metal, conceived and directed by Kirsty Davies-Chinnock, MD of Professional Polishing Services in the West Midlands. On this edition of The Production Line, we're joined by Kirsty and by two of the 2024 conference speakers: Steph Snade, founder of the Limitless Leadership Academy and Jeremy Stockdale, founder of Ylead.Topic: breaking down the workplace barriers and systems (created by men over decades) and making the shop floor free from sexism, unconscious bias (and conscious!) and reaping the ultimate dividend of a wider talent pool. Hang onto your hats, it's a great conversation! Find out more: https://womenwithmetal.com/

The latest Make UK statistical snapshot of UK manufacturing, the 2024 Fact Card, shows the UK slipping out of the world Top Ten for the first time in years - perhaps ever.

But as this discussion with Make UK's Policy Director Verity Davidge and Bath University's Professor Michael Lewis shows, it is the result of seismic shifts in the world economy rather than a weakness in UK manufacturing.

And yet at the same time, those world events demand an urgent reappraisal of what we make in the UK and how we make it.

And what role government needs to play in that via its new industrial strategy.

Dr Andy Palmer is one of the most respected figures in the automotive industry in the UK and beyond. After a stellar 23 year career at Nissan - where he developed the Nissan Leaf among other standout models - he became CEO at Aston Martin in 2014, then in 2021 he left to focus on projects in the electric vehicle space. In this wide-ranging discussion with Nick Peters, he underscores the urgency with which the UK government needs to act to secure the future of the national auto industry. He also talks about his career, his management and engineering philosophy, and about his passion for helping disadvantaged young people into manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships.

The General Election 2024 will signal a sea-change in the way the UK economy is run. Growth is central to that and an industrial strategy is the key to achieving it. But what does industrial strategy actually mean? How does it work? Is it just money? (No.) Is it politically quite hard to carry off? (Yes.) And do manufacturers have a role in shaping it? (Yes, again.)
Nick discusses all this with Giles Wilkes, who was Sir Vince Cable's special adviser and helped run industrial strategy in the Coalition years and then special adviser to PM Theresa May for the 2017-19 industrial strategy, helping devise Made Smarter and much else.

Author Will Hutton believes passionately in the power of manufacturing to lead a renaissance in the British economy. For decades, he has promoted the idea that a successful economy, a successful society, can only be based on harmony between individual self interest and community, the I and the We as he puts it, and it is all brought together in his new book, out now in paperback, called This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain. It's a sweeping historical analysis of the state we are in - and how to repair it.

Also in this edition, meet FOBEM: the Festival of British Engineering and Manufacturing, a bold new initiative to introduce young people to the joys and thrills of modern manufacturing.

The Production Line is a new podcast from the team that brings you ManufacturingTV. In fact it is available as both video and podcast for you to enjoy when and where you please.

In this first edition, we talk to Pragmatic, the rising star of the UK semiconductor industry. We discuss a new survey into public perceptions of the manufacturing sector and the outcomes may surprise you! And Henry Anson of The Manufacturer talks about the 2024 Smart Manufacturing and Engineering show - more like a festival - at the NEC.

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