The Welsh car industry has been fuelled with a new £1.3 million grant from the National Assembly, writes Robin Roberts, motoring editor of the Western Mail.
Accelerate Wales, the Welsh Development Agency-managed project to assist automotive companies improve their performance, has been given the money to expand operations.
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During its first year of operation, the project has worked with supply chain networks to help a range of firms across Wales to win additional business worth some £27.3 million.
Accelerate Wales, managed by the WDA on behalf of a partnership consisting of the Assembly, the Engineering Employers Federation, ELWa and the Welsh Automotive Forum, was initially devised soon after BMW announced its intention of ending its involvement with Rover in 2000.
The announcement caused serious concerns about the future order books of many Welsh automotive components makers and prompted the launch of Accelerate Wales as a means of improving the competitiveness of Welsh companies in the face of increasing overcapacity in the global automotive industry.
The project was planned as a three year programme focussed on a series of supply chains consisting of “lead companies” – which are direct suppliers to car markets – and the network of smaller, local, component makers who supply the lead companies.
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By GlobalDataThe objective was to prepare and implement a detailed plan to improve efficiency throughout the chain.
Results for the project’s first year, which ended in April, were very promising and will be outlined to Accelerate Wales members tomorrow (Thursday).
Along with £27.3 million of extra business secured, Accelerate Wales identified opportunities for the 147 companies involved in the project to compete for orders worth £228 million. This is now being developed.
It’s also estimated that the project has so far created or safeguarded nearly 600 jobs.
For example, Continental Teves, based at Ebbw Vale, were aided by the Accelerate Wales programme in their successful bid to win work transferred from other sites in Europe.
The transfer could benefit the local supply chain by up to £7 million, with suppliers such as Merthyr Electro Plating, Severn Environment of Cwmbran and Monex of Tredegar already winning significant orders.
Tomorrow, the Programme Champions – the individuals who co-ordinated and led improvement programmes within their separate supply chains – and the companies involved in the first year will spell out what the programme has meant to them.
Professor Garel Rhys, head of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff Business School, will address the conference on the current state of the European motor industry.
He said, “The Accelerate Wales programme shows how the public sector taking a long term view can be used to help the private sector and the free market to work more efficiently and shows you can get money well spent.
“A million pounds of public money can lever out tens of millions of pounds of expenditure from the private sector.”
The extra £1.3 million of funding agreed by the Assembly will enable the programme to enter a second phase and enrol many companies that might otherwise miss out.
“In the first year, we concentrated entirely on companies linked by supply chains.” said programme manager Steve Patterson.
“The extra funding means that this year we will be able to introduce similar improvement programmes for ‘clusters’ – that is to say groups of companies with a common technology or who operate in the same segment of the automotive sector.”
Some of the companies which have benefited from the programme’s first year, including Llanelli-based Calsonic and Continental Teves, will discuss their experiences and feedback sessions will review progress achieved by Accelerate Wales to date.
