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The two sites in question were Mazak’s European HQ in Worcester and Heller’s factory in Redditch. In reality these two establishments are something of a rarity in the UK these days and that’s because they’re true manufacturing facilities. Mazak manufactures a large quantity of machines practically from start to finish in Worcester and at Heller, the site is responsible for the assembly of around 200 4-axis machines each year.

Once, nearly all factories in the UK were made this way. I did my apprenticeship with Fisher Control Valves based in Rochester, Kent and we handled all machining and assembly in house. Our machine shop was busy making parts purely for our own products and very little was subcontracted – a bit of heat treatment here; a bit of specialised NDT there.

Then, as with many other companies, the routes to low cost manufacturing opened up and all of a sudden the world seemed much smaller. In Fisher’s case, it opened a manufacturing facility in Eastern Europe and the rest is history. We now have a Morrisons supermarket on the location where once things were made.

But things move on and this sequence of events paved the way for the UK’s army of subcontract engineering companies. True OEMs are now largely a thing of the past in the UK but a vibrant subcontracting fraternity in the UK means that if you have a great idea for a product you can still get it designed, manufactured and assembled relatively close to home.

I hope that someday we’ll see more Mazaks and Hellers manufacturing in the UK again. It’s testament to both companies that their respective senior management teams have put their faith in UK manufacturing and they’re proving beyond doubt that it is possible to produce products economically and to high standards of quality from this small island of ours.