CNC Precision Engineering in Britain

CNC Precision Engineering in Britain

Is Britain is back to its best in terms of engineering? Arguably so, because over the last few years Britain has been re-recognised as the engineering powerhouse of yesteryear with many large companies basing themselves in the UK for largely engineering reasons. Take companies like Land Rover, Nissan, Toyota and the vast majority of F1 teams who require CNC precision engineering to remain successful and competitive in the international scene.

Moreover, Britain’s strength in providing CNC precision engineering means that computer aided design (CAD) as well as computer aided manufacturing (CAM) designs can be achieved at extremely high levels of quality unmatched in many parts of the world. Additionally, with renewed efforts to make the UK the most attractive location to base a business within, alongside an economy which is dominated by a knowledge economy, the future certainly appears attractive.

Whereas from a supply chain perspective, large companies can be rest assured that stereotypical small engineering companies that the UK is home to provide vast wealth of knowledge in their areas of specialisation. Sometimes these specialisations offer a unique approach in delivering one-off as well as large scale batches of products. This wouldn’t be possible if you were to order from China or India where economies of scale, import costs and design/lead times come into play. Increased political-economic stabilities have also been a more contemporary issue. This situation is simply undesirable and unprofitable to UK companies requiring CNC precision engineering in a fast, adaptive environment where competitive edge is crucial. Moreover, of the last few seasons of Formula 1, in particular, it has been witnessed how important it is for manufactures to be able to call upon engineering techniques from British companies such as McLaren or Williams who have shown it is vital to be able to change designs quickly. The Red Bull team of 2010 also found this out to their misfortune with their innovative aerodynamic wheel cover which didn’t meet FIA rules for the following season. This required a change in design and precision engineering for the following year.

So important is engineering to the UK economy that it now constitutes a large proportion of public policy efforts to ensure that new apprenticeship schemes train young people to offer the next generation of engineers. This has been most evident again with car companies who have been eager to soak up the talent. Whatever happens, Britain’s engineering prowess appears to be back.