MAS gives businesses independent straightforward practical advice from approachable manufacturing experts who themselves have years of hands on experience. The service is subsidised, and for smaller firms much of the help is free.
Companies who have used MAS have found it increases the value of their business through a combination of increased turnover and reduced costs. The value of the firms who have used MAS Yorkshire and Humber has gone up by £17.1m.
Yorkshire & Humber manufacturers have seen £70m of this total figure, with MAS Yorkshire & Humber handing 11,400 enquiries, delivering 1,599 advisory visits, and providing 768 in-depth manufacturing improvement projects.
Areas where MAS has helped companies add value include:
* productivity, which has risen by more than a quarter nationally.
* use of space - improved by a third.
* efficient use of equipment- up by a third.
* waste in the production process - cut by 28 per cent;
* orders delivered on time - up by 28 per cent.
Margaret Hodge, Minister for Industry and the Regions, said MAS had shown it could help manufacturers respond to the challenges of competition, raw materials costs and rising energy prices.
She said: "3.5m people work in manufacturing and they contribute more than £150 billion a year to our GDP.
"We do all we can to encourage and support high value manufacturing. One way we can do this is by maintaining a stable and growing economy, with low inflation. But we also need to provide help and advice tailored to individual firms, and this is where MAS fits in.
"The latest results show that progress has been sustained in the fourth year of a very successful programme. As the Chancellor recognised in his 2006 budget speech, there is no doubt that MAS has a continuing role to play in the future."
The 2005-6 figure takes the value-added total for the four years since MAS began to £224m, according to figures in the latest MAS annual report. The budget for the service has been £41m for that period, showing a good return on the money put in. Almost 15,000 firms have had detailed diagnostic advice, and 4,700 in depth improvement projects have been delivered to firms.
Showing what MAS can achieve, Leeds-based Unicam, Europe's leading manufacturer of interactive demonstration products and display units for the retail market, has announced an increased turnover of £4 million, following assistance from MAS Yorkshire & Humber.
The company has been immensely successful in providing products and services for multi-media, audio/visual, home theatre and plasma, I-POD, touch screens and interactive kiosks, but Managing Director Sally Salter recognised room for improvement. Her vision was to restructure the company by a more solid integration of the creative, sales and manufacturing teams in order to improve turn around times.
MAS was instrumental in helping Sally address these key business areas and through three in-depth consultation projects MAS helped Unicam to eliminate a complete production cycle through a change to their prototype by the introduction of advanced animated visuals.
