The goal of any industrial strategy that emerges from the new government should be to encourage dynamic, digital technology-driven manufacturing activity at the local level: to deliver skilled, high-paying jobs in areas that lost skills and jobs in the de-industrialisation of the last few decades. In the latest edition of #TheProductionLine, we learn about CBE+, a Chesterfield company that has done just that. And Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership says investment in manufacturing and skills holds the key to delivering new prosperity to the North (and the rest of the UK) given the chance.

How can we understand what it takes to manufacture the products that define our present - and our future - if we don't study the materials that go into them and where they come from? That's the question that drove Ed Conway, Economics and Data Editor at Sky News, to research and write MATERIAL WORLD, one of the top-selling business books of the last year. But what started as a project driven by intellectual curiosity ended up forcing him to question the fundamentals of economic and industrial policy that have been taken for granted for decades in the UK - and to fear for our national security unless a serious reappraisal of those policies is carried out.

In 2023 a new conference landed called Women With Metal, conceived and directed by Kirsty Davies-Chinnock, MD of Professional Polishing Services in the West Midlands. On this edition of The Production Line, we're joined by Kirsty and by two of the 2024 conference speakers: Steph Snade, founder of the Limitless Leadership Academy and Jeremy Stockdale, founder of Ylead.Topic: breaking down the workplace barriers and systems (created by men over decades) and making the shop floor free from sexism, unconscious bias (and conscious!) and reaping the ultimate dividend of a wider talent pool. Hang onto your hats, it's a great conversation! Find out more: https://womenwithmetal.com/