EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Machine Tool Indonesia opens this week

Machine Tool Indonesia will open its doors later this week (6-9 December) at the Jakarta International Expo Centre and look to build on the success of last year’s show.The 2022 exhibition edition saw more than 840 exhibiting companies from 33 countries take part. Alongside a variety of onsite activities, including business matchmaking, ‘Tech-Talk’ sessions, live demonstrations and product presentations, last year’s event attracted over 25,300 trade attendees from more than 10 countries. Some 44% were first-time visitors.

Co-located with three other industries events, including Manufacturing Indonesia, Tools & Hardware Indonesia, and Industrial Automation & Logistics Indonesia, the exhibitions have become the largest manufacturing trade show for machinery, supplies and equipment exhibitions in Indonesia – all under one roofspanning 17,800 sq m.Some 78% of visitors at the 2022 show said they would return this year.
For further information www.machinetoolindonesia.com

NCMT appoints sales manager for southeast

Luke Insleyis the new NCMTarea sales manager for southeast England. Insley is now responsible for sales of the company’s product portfolio, which includes Okuma machining centres, CNC lathes and grinders, Makino machining centres, and photo-activated adhesive work-holding systems manufactured by Blue Photon. Apprentice-trained with a HNC in mechanical engineering, his recent roles include applications and technical support engineer at a cutting tool company, assisting both end users and distributors, and sales engineer for a tooling supplier.
For further information www.ncmt.co.uk

In-Comm wins award

A company that supports more than 700 apprentices every year has been recognised as the ‘best’ in its field. In-Comm Training, which operates two Technical Academies in Aldridge and Telford, was named as the ‘Training Provider of the Year’ at the recent Ladder for the Black Country Awards.More than 250 people crammed into Walsall Football Club to celebrate the stars of vocational learning, with the family-run firm impressing the judges with its £10m investment strategy and its recent record-breaking 199 apprentice cohort intake.The launch of the UK’s first ever Precision Tooling Academy also won praise.
For further information www.in-comm.co.uk

Knowledge Hubs will be core theme at MACH

MACH 2024 (15-19 April, Birmingham NEC), will attempt to help reverse UK manufacturing’s poor record for adopting new technology. The show’s organiser, the Manufacturing Technologies Association (MTA),is ona mission to spearhead growth by using its flagship event to launch its new Knowledge Hubs initiative.The programme helps manufacturers learn more about the potential offered by the latest technologies, as well as when to adopt it and how to implement it to best effect.

The initiative received a major shot-in-the-arm with the recent announcement of £4.5bn of Government funding to support advanced manufacturing. The funding will directly benefit several of the exhibition’s key themes, especially energy efficiency, with the fund earmarking £960m for clean energy manufacturing through a Green Industries Growth Accelerator.
For further information www.machexhibition.com

Green light for Robotics Institute in Yorkshire

The University of Bradford is partnering with Keighley College and Bradford Council in creating an Advanced Institute for Robotics Engineering. The Institute, which will be based in Keighley, West Yorkshire, will benefit from a slice of the £20m Levelling Up funding announced on 20 November. It will be housed in a new, two-floor facility thatwill accommodate up to 250 full-time undergraduates and 40 postgraduate students in the study of robotics, advanced engineering, automation, artificial intelligence and computer science.
For further information www.bradford.ac.uk