Comment from the coal face: MTA president Geoff Bryant

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geoff

Interviewing the current president of the MTA has become something of a tradition in PES’ MACH show issue and this year, the man in the spotlight is Geoff Bryant. The timing is particularly appropriate because Mr Bryant has recently stepped down as managing director of Citizen UK after 43 years of sterling service. Dave Tudor reports.

I’ve known Geoff Bryant for more than 10 years and in describing him, words like confident, authoritative, sincere, practical, grounded, methodical and respectful spring to mind. Someone who would react calmly in a crisis.

But whilst personality plays a leading role in an individual’s success, equally important factors are ability and experience. In Mr Bryant’s case, a long and distinguished career began in the early 1970s at Brunel University studying mechanical engineering, but before that, early evidence of his practical prowess was emerging. This is a man, who at the age of 16, totally rewired his parents’ house and installed a central heating system from scratch, purely from reading books!

Looking back, Mr Bryant is grateful for the training he received: “I had the best of both worlds in those early years because my university course was sponsored by my employer, Metal Box,” he recalls. “Metal Box were a global manufacturer of metal cans and packaging with 55 sites in the UK alone, so I had fantastic training and was sent all over the country to learn about the various aspects of the business.

“But in all those sites I saw myself in ten years’ time and I really didn’t relish that prospect,” he adds. “In truth I really wanted to run my own business.”

In 1974, Mr Bryant joined NC Engineering – a start-up company selling computer-controlled machines – and found himself having to learn many new skills ‘on the job’ such as programming, customer training, servicing and manning the telephone support hotline. One of its product lines was the first NC sliding head machines in the world, manufactured by a (then) relatively unknown Japanese company called Citizen, initially for its own watchmaking production. The seeds were sown.

“Things snowballed pretty quickly with Citizen,” Mr Bryant explains. “The early machines were in reality NC versions of cam-style technology, but the real milestone came around 1976 when Citizen completely redesigned the machines to incorporate a turret, live tooling and a C-axis. That was revolutionary at the time.

“Much later, when the CE marking regulations took hold, some of our other principals backed away from the European market. We decided at that time to focus on our strengths which were turning centres. We rationalised our product line as well, focusing on just Citizen sliding head and Ikegai fixed head lathes.”

Exit strategy

Evolution kicked in. The company moved to its Bushey, Watford site in 1983; Geoff Bryant became managing director in 1991 and NC Engineering morphed into Citizen UK in 2008. By now, it was the most successful Citizen subsidiary globally outside of Japan and became a model business for other Citizen dealers around the world. Two years later in 2010, Citizen acquired Miyano Machinery UK, a fixed head lathe specialist.

Part of the long-term plan when Citizen UK became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Citizen Japan, was that Mr Bryant would formulate an exit strategy when it was time for him to retire. On 1st January 2017, the plan came to fruition: Mr Bryant, although he would remain on the payroll for a further two years on a consultative basis, effectively handed over operational management of Citizen UK to a new team comprising Edward James as managing director, Darren Wilkins as deputy managing director, and Jon Hart as finance director.

Part of the new team’s brief will be overseeing the development of a new £2 million European Technology Centre development in Brierley Hill, 45 minutes from Birmingham Airport. The facility will be home for much of the company’s applications engineering and turnkey projects with completion set for Autumn 2018.

New horizons

Mr Bryant’s involvement with the MTA (or the MTTA as it was known then) reaches back to 2001 when a long stretch serving on the Exhibition Committee began. The committee’s main function was (and is) to oversee the organisation and direction of MACH shows and to ensure that the event continues to offer the best possible platform for exhibitors and visitors to do business. He became chairman in 2005 – a position he held until late 2016 when he took over the overall presidency of the Association.

MACH 2018, with its relocation from halls 4 and 5 to a more linear format spanning halls 17, 18, 19, 20, 6 and 7 means the committee was effectively starting with a blank canvas: “I am certain that the new layout will be a vast improvement,” Mr Bryant states. “It’ll be a large L-shaped space on a single level and when all the partitions are removed for the show, visitors literally won’t be able to see the join. There’ll be no ‘graveyards’ – no back of hall 5 and no hall 4 at all; it’ll give the show a totally different dynamic.

“There will also be a wealth of new additions. The ‘IT for Manufacturing Zone’ for example will focus on smart factories, software systems and digital manufacturing. But it won’t just be theoretical – there will be practical examples demonstrating how any company, large or small, can embrace the technology. Another significant improvement in the new halls is the lighting which has recently been upgraded to LED throughout.”

Pivotal role

Trade associations are a bit like Marmite. Some companies are very positive about their role in business whilst others are more sceptical. Perhaps surprisingly, Geoff Bryant, in the past before he became involved with the MTA was firmly in the latter camp. Now, as he reveals, he’s definitely one of the converted.

“As the current president of the MTA, I’m actually more enthusiastic about the role it plays in manufacturing than I’ve ever been before,” he says.

“The UK is going through a particularly turbulent time at the moment and no-one really knows how Brexit will pan out. With this in mind, I’m genuinely heartened by the fact that the voice of the MTA is being listened to in the circles that matter, and its advice, certainly at Governmental level, is being sought now in a way that I’ve never seen before. For members, the industry intelligence provided by our statistician Geoff Noon is an invaluable resource.

“In addition, the strength and depth of the MTA Board in terms of its calibre is undoubtedly the best it’s ever been in my opinion and, under the leadership of CEO James Selka, I would say the same about the entire MTA team,” he asserts. “It’s also important to recognise that the MACH show is regarded as a flagship event in the UK exhibition calendar and regularly wins exhibition industry awards across a multitude of sectors.”

Education and training is always a hot topic in manufacturing and this year the MTA is announcing increased grants (from £2,000 up to £3,000) for members taking on apprentices or retraining and reskilling existing staff. “In general, we’re roughly doubling the funding that we’re offering to MTA members,” Mr Bryant enthuses.

“The Education Zone at MACH has really flourished since we introduced it because it’s a subject that affects us all. In any conversation about manufacturing, it’s never long before the subject of skills is raised. The long-term fix is education, but in the short-term, because it’s so difficult to recruit skilled staff, it’s all about doing more with the same amount of people. Apprentices are vitally important but so is upskilling the workforce. The additional funding we’re offering our members will certainly help in that regard.”

Brexit and beyond

Mr Bryant’s presidency runs until December 2018, so during his term, what have been his goals and objectives? “Well I’ve been asked to be MTA president several times in the past, but I’ve always declined because in my role as Citizen UK managing director, as well as my responsibility for various Citizen sites throughout Europe, I’ve simply been too busy to give the position the time and dedication it deserves.

“Now, with my retirement from the day to day running of Citizen, things are different as I have more free time. I realised pretty early on that because of the timing, I’d be remembered as ‘the Brexit president’ so my goals, which I’ve labelled ‘Future MTA’ are centred around preparing and restructuring the association internally so it’s in the best possible shape for a post-Brexit world.

“Of course we have no idea of what that actually means at this point in time, but we’ll influence, through our communication channels with the Government, what we believe to be important. This is less about the deal itself and more about things like non-tariff barriers and trading and technical standards. We can really have a voice in these matters.

“When I hand over the presidency to my successor, I want the association and its staff to be sufficiently dynamic and flexible to be able to react to any situation that may arise after the Brexit negotiations are finalised,” he concludes.

“We also changed the association’s articles and constitution in December last year towards a much less rigid structure. We can now set-up new committees and focus groups as and when required very quickly which will make us much more dynamic and better equipped to deal with an ever-changing landscape.”

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