South Yorkshire has undergone a manufacturing renaissance in recent years, with the region’s economy benefiting from a boom in manufacturing and engineering industries.
The development of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District (AMID), the UK’s largest research-led advanced manufacturing cluster, has attracted big names such as McLaren, Boeing and Rolls-Royce. Linking Sheffield and Rotherham, the AMID corridor has acted as a catalyst for the industrial rebounding of the area. Innovation-led manufacturing has been further stimulated by the presence of the University of Sheffield’s world-leading Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) and its sister centre, the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.
In March 2023 South Yorkshire was announced as one of 12 Investment Zones in the UK by Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, as key pillar of his spring budget. £80 million of funding is set to help turbocharge local growth.
But progress does not come not without its challenges. The South Yorkshire Strategic Economic Plan, covering 2021-2041, states that too few businesses innovate or operate in national or global supply chains, and not enough of the workforce have the right qualifications to help them reach their full potential. The plan seeks to focus on growth, inclusion and sustainability, whilst increasing productivity.
Made in Yorkshire members are ready to address these challenges head on though.
Barnsley
Barnsley has a rich industrial heritage of coal mining, glassmaking and textiles. Today, the town is host to one of the sites for Balmoral Tanks, a proud Made in Yorkshire member, and part of a group of companies with combined revenues of more than £110 million in 2022, and a key supplier to the water, wastewater, anaerobic digestion (AD), firefighting and processing industries worldwide.The company, headquartered in Aberdeen, upgraded its manufacturing processes in Barnsley in 2017 with a £20 million investment in a purpose-designed factory, having acquired a legacy company’s assets and expertise in 2014.
Exports are a key driver of Balmoral’s success, with exports to 55 countries in 2022, assisted by favourable exchange rates, but driven primarily by a core competency in green growth as more countries embrace their own Net Zero futures. Allan Joyce, managing director, and a member of Made in Yorkshire’s growth council, is committed to supporting the local community and creating sustainable employment opportunities at Balmoral’s site in Thurnscoe, a village just outside Barnsley.
“I’ve found South Yorkshire to be amazingly vibrant. Obviously, Yorkshire is the largest county in England, and you’ve got some major cities, like Sheffield, on your doorstep. Our workforce is a vital asset for us and we develop our people through our own leadership academy, as well as our new E-learning platform.”
Rotherham
Just down the M1 from Barnsley, Rotherham has a diverse manufacturing base, with companies operating in a range of industries, including aerospace, automotive, construction and defence. The town is home to Airmaster, a company producing energy efficient bespoke heating and cooling systems for customers all over the UK.
Airmaster’s managing director, Lisa Pogson, chairs Rotherham’s Business Growth Board, a public/private sector partnership with representation from across business that is working to attract investment into the area and tap into government funding streams coming into the region at the moment.
Reflecting on Airmaster’s Made in Yorkshire membership, Lisa says:
“Being part of Made in Yorkshire is about keeping Yorkshire on the map. We want to shout about all Yorkshire has to offer. Made in Yorkshire also brings together a network of like-minded people who are incredibly knowledgeable and supportive, so I'd always advocate for that.”
Doncaster
Doncaster has a long history of manufacturing, with a focus on rail engineering and locomotive production. The town is the birthplace of the world-famous Flying Scotsman, which was built in Doncaster’s railway works in 1923 and has just celebrated its centenary by joining the Royal Train on King Charles’ recent visit to North Yorkshire.
Today, Doncaster remains a hub for rail engineering, although the recently announced closure of the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure, a casualty of uncertainty around HS2 contracts, will undoubtedly come as a setback to ambitions for growth.
But Doncaster is a resilient and versatile manufacturing centre that is also home to a number of highly successful companies operating beyond the rail sector, including another Made in Yorkshire member, precision engineering company, Agemaspark.
Agemaspark has invested in 3D metal printing technology and is currently capitalising on far-reaching legislative changes to ban single use plastics. They also manufacture complex components for companies that make X-ray machines, as well as having made parts for the International Space Station. To infinity and beyond? Founder and managing director, Paul Stockhill, thinks so:
“One of the biggest advantages over the last few years, post-Brexit and post-pandemic, is that the Sheffield City Region (now known as the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority) has also become more of an entity in itself, creating a shop window for innovative firms with global ambitions. Made in Yorkshire helps with this too.”
Sheffield
Last, and by no means least, the steel city of Sheffield has a proud manufacturing heritage. Fast forward to the present day, Sheffield is home to a thriving manufacturing sector, with companies operating in a range of industries, including aerospace, automotive, construction and healthcare.
FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics was spun out of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, where its two founders, Chris Iveson and Robin Hartley, worked. The company, founded in 2020, initially launched its plug-and-play machine monitoring solutions to SME manufacturers using CNC machines. A year later the company now provides its ‘productivity improvement platform’ to companies across all manufacturing verticals, from precision engineering companies to global food manufacturers.
Another benefit of the FourJaw’s versatile functionality is its ability to monitor energy usage. As FourJaw’s head of marketing & communications, James Brook, explains:
“Technically, FourJaw’s technology had the capability to do energy monitoring from day dot, but it wasn't our core focus. We were about enabling process improvement to maximise manufacturing efficiency, but with the macroeconomic pressures, particularly inflation and the rising energy costs, we found we were getting more and more demand for energy monitoring from manufacturers, in response to this, our product management team and developers worked on adding the feature to our platform, which we officially launched in March this year.”
Also based in Sheffield, Pryor Marking, a Made in Yorkshire member company that has recently exhibited at the Paris Air Show, is enabling the rise of Industry 4.0 and smart factories. Pryor’s equipment allows manufacturers to put ‘marks’ on the components that they manufacture. These marks can be brand names, logos, batch numbers, serial numbers, or even specific data related to the part.
In the context of Industry 4.0, putting a mark on a component can be the first step in allowing it to be traced through the production process and its entire life cycle, collecting real-time data that can be easily fed into a wider ‘Smart Factory’ set up.
Conclusion
South Yorkshire’s manufacturing resurgence is testament to the region’s resilience and adaptability in the face of economic challenges. The area’s manufacturing sector has undergone significant transformation in recent years, with a focus on innovation, investment and collaboration to work smarter and leverage opportunities brought about in part by the need to embrace greener technologies and more sustainable ways of working.
Manufacturing companies in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield are driving economic growth and creating jobs in the region by investing heavily in new technology, research and development, as well as embracing new ways of working to improve efficiency and productivity. South Yorkshire has always been a dynamic place and it will continue to evolve and adapt, and so its manufacturing sector will remain a key driver of economic growth and innovation, both in the UK and globally.
If you’d like to learn more about Made in Yorkshire and how membership can help your business to grow, visit https://madeinyorkshire.com/register