A recent report produced by the European Commission, Innovation Union Scorecard 2015, shows the UK in 8th place within Europe for innovation performance. My personal opinion is, we can improve on this, not only improve but secure a position of innovation leadership within Europe.

True innovators are leaders. They take the risk. They are not sheep who are swayed by popular opinion. They are the first to try out new concepts. And most importantly they are not afraid to fail.

Common sense also tells us that to do something different, or improve on what you have already we need people, time and money. Ah! Unfortunately not something a lot manufacturing companies have going spare. So how do we get around this dilemma?

Our passion always has been and always will be UK manufacturing! We love the fast paced environment, the communities within factories, the diversity of products we make here in the UK and most of all seeing the news headlines related to manufacturing success stories. The majority of news these days is depressing or celebrity obsessed, so it’s always good to hear a stories showcasing manufacturing progress.

Having read today’s results of the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) Barometer http://www.mymas.org/news/manufacturers-answer-call-for-greater-productivity we feel that the 80% of the 859 manufacturers surveyed that are looking to increase productivity need our support. We spend every day of every week inside manufacturing plants around the UK and not only feel your pain but know we can help to make a difference.

As 2014 has been our most successful year as a consultancy business we feel we can give something back by offering a free manufacturing review to North West based manufacturers during December 2014. As much as we would love to transform the whole of the UK manufacturing industry we need to be realistic. We could between 1st and 19th December complete a Free Manufacturing Review with approx. 20 businesses in the North West.

The feedback our manufacturing clients have communicated directly back to the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) currently scores at 4.9/5 (98%).

If you are not already aware MAS are a government funded organisation that provide SME manufacturers based in England with impartial advice on improvement and growth. They also provide grant funding to manufacturing businesses, which enables them to subsidise paying for external lean manufacturing consultants like Futurestate Solutions.

The feedback we have received is based on 9 projects we have delivered for manufacturing SME clients such as Ritherdon, Mercol Office Furniture, Rattan Direct and International Pheromone.

The simplest way to find out why we score so high would be to ask our customers or follow our 10 step guide...