Manufacturing tipped to outperform other business sectors

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said: "The UK economy grew by 0.8% in the third quarter, down from the 1.2% growth spurt seen in the second quarter but nevertheless showing surprising resilience. However, the impact of public sector spending cuts have already become apparent with household spending rising by just 0.3% compared to 0.7% in the second quarter. We expect the impact of government spending cuts, concerns about job security in the public sector and uncertainty caused by the escalating financial crisis in Europe to become even more evident as we move towards the end of 2010. The rate of economic growth therefore looks set to slow further in the fourth quarter, possibly down to around 0.4%, based on the survey evidence we have seen to date." However, he went on: "Manufacturing exports will help lift output in the goods-producing sector by around 0.5%; hardly runaway growth by any means but continuing to outperform other business sectors." Williamson believed the service sector appeared to be on course to grow by just 0.2% as domestic demand continued to weaken in the face of subdued consumer and business confidence. The construction sector also appeared to have lost the momentum seen earlier in the year, with only modest growth likely in the final quarter. Crop storage facility borrows manufacturing technology Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research Centre is set to become the leading European facility of its kind following the opening of six controlled environment stores based on technology more often found in high tech manufacturing and production plants. Built in just 20 weeks at a cost of £600,000 by specialist company Crop Systems in nearby North Walsham, Norfolk, the stores use Mitsubishi Electric controllers and fan drives to control the temperature, humidity and CO2 content in each store. Crop Systems' Ray Andrews said: "Essentially we have sensors (pictured) all over each store which feed back to a computer. This takes all the data, builds a 3D map of the atmosphere, then sets the speed of various fans to ensure target conditions are maintained. It gets more sophisticated because we may be wanting to gradually change the environmental conditions over a period of a few days, may want to introduce a cleaning-in-place mist, and must seek to minimise overall energy consumption. With storage lasting for 6-12 months, a small daily energy saving will add up to cheaper vegetables for the consumer. Our software works all this out automatically and ensures the crops come out of storage as fresh as they went in." There are six storage cells, which provide a total of 42 units, to look at various storage and refrigeration techniques. For example, different ventilation methods – forced, suction, letter box – could be investigated.