Northern Powerhouse Minister Jake Berry visited Baildon-based Produmax today to meet staff and hear at first hand how the industry-led Sharing in Growth programme has helped secure £50 million in contracts and create new jobs.

As part of the Northern Powerhouse Live initiative, Jake Berry, MP for Rossendale and Darwen and Minister for the Northern Powerhouse, toured the purpose-built factory looking at investments made in people, machinery and advanced technology and answering questions from the 70-strong staff about the Northern Powerhouse. His aim was to understand better the needs of the north by meeting people who work in businesses, own businesses and are starting businesses.

Mandy Ridyard, co-owner of Produmax, global experts in flight control components which exports 80 per cent of its production to USA, Canada, Japan, Morocco, the Philippines, and Italy, explained how Produmax had set a vision of being engineering superheroes to engage and inspire their team so they could further develop their skills and contribute to growing the business.

Mandy, who bought the firm with husband Jeremy in 1997, said: “ We were selected for Sharing in Growth in 2014 and this has been key in transforming our business.

"Aerospace is a huge market with huge growth but we recognised that the UK lagged behind the majority of G7 companies in terms of productivity and we needed help.

"We’d won a £50 million contract which would bring work back from China to the UK. We were struggling with capacity and knew this could limit our growth so we turned to Sharing in Growth, a government-backed programme which brings world-class expert training and coaching to support ambitious aerospace companies.”

With help from Sharing in Growth, as well as Bradford Council and the local LEP, Produmax invested in a new plant at Baildon, increased turnover by 55 per cent, increased headcount by 60 per cent to 70 people, improved productivity by almost 40 per cent and secured contracts worth over £50 million. The company is also investing for the future so is opening a second plant later this year, has set up links with universities, colleges and schools and has created its own apprenticeship programme.

Produmax, whose customers include aerospace leaders such as Bombardier, Moog, Meggitt and Cobham, stopped production so the team could meet Jake Berry and ask questions about the Northern Powerhouse.

Among them were the company’s nine apprentices and also two work experience students. Sixteen year-old Lucy Kendrick, whose ambition is to study astro physics and who is spending one week at Produmax, asked the Minister what the Northern Powerhouse could do to support women in engineering.

The Minister explained that, in the year of engineering and 100 years since women’s suffrage, the government was tackling the issue as a country-wide issue.

He said: "The Northern Powerhouse is about creating more highly paid jobs and great careers across the whole of the north, so that our children and grandchildren won’t get on the train to London but will stay in the north and work for leading manufacturers like Produmax because it’s the best place to live and has the best jobs.

“Produmax is a brilliant story. It typifies what differentiates northerners who are prepared to take on the brave journey, to build a new factory when many would have shied away from that kind of challenge.”

Andy Page, CEO of Sharing in Growth, said: “We are delighted that Jake Berry invested time to understand the positive impact of Sharing in Growth as a government-backed, industry-led productivity and competitiveness programme that is creating highly valued jobs in advanced manufacturing businesses like Produmax. We are working with 14 companies in the Northern region and have the potential to help many more to double in size.

“Sharing in Growth has the scale and intensity to ensure companies can accelerate their growth, typically by addressing a 20% cost gap and targeting 50% productivity improvement. Having helped around 60 programme participants to secure £2.5 billion in contracts totalling over 22,000-man years of high value work, Sharing in Growth is well on target to safeguard 10,000 UK jobs by 2022 and to return £60 in contracts for every £1 of public investment.”

Established in August 2013, the Sharing in Growth programme helps aerospace supply chain companies to improve their productivity and competitiveness so they are better placed to win a share of continued growth in the global aerospace market. Each company participates in a bespoke and intense training and business transformation programme which enables them to double their sales turnover in around four years.

There are limited places left on the government-supported Sharing in Growth programme. Companies interested in how the programme can improve their competitiveness and productivity should register at: www.sig-uk.org/apply