While countries such as China can offer very tempting alternatives to manufacturing in the UK, said Omega Plastics, having highly complex tools made 1000s of miles away from use is not viable.
UK manufacturing faces many challenges, not least that posed by low-cost manufacturing economies. The biggest threat in this respect comes from China, which is expanding its manufacturing capacity at an astonishing rate and is targeting the UK, and especially the UK's mould and toolmaking sectors in particular. While many UK-based manufacturing companies remain either oblivious or are simply ignoring the threat posed by China, Tyne and Wear, UK-based Omega Plastics is determined to meet it 'head on'.

Leading this fight back is Gordon Styles, Omega's newly appointed managing director.

His experience in the rapid prototyping/toolmaking sector is second to none having owned and managed businesses here in the UK and, more importantly in this case, in China itself.

This inside knowledge of the industrial behemoth that is threatening UK manufacturing will prove invaluable.

'Having lived in China and managed factories there, I am completely convinced that by 2015 China will dominate the world politically and economically,' said Styles.

'The Chinese are the fastest learners and most industrious people I have ever encountered.

Unless Western Governments react extremely fast to these developments by investing huge amounts in skill training and manufacturing, the UK and other 'ostrich like' nations will be bulldozed out of existence.

Whilst the US, UK and others are fighting costly diversionary wars, China is building the most significant Empire the Planet has ever seen.' Styles explained: 'As I walked and streets and the factory floors of China, I was overwhelmed by a sense of being right at the centre of the World'.

'Everything is possible in China and, contrary to popular belief, given the stability provided by its Government; it is poised to dwarf the USA as a World power.

In relation to my own industry of mouldmaking there are thousands of competing companies in China's Guangdong province alone, and some of them are world leaders.

If we compare the UK's largest mouldmaker with just over 100 people to its Chinese equivalent with over 2500 employees, you can see why the UK's toolmaking sector has been torn to shreds.' However, while countries such as China can offer very tempting alternatives to manufacturing in the UK, particularly while they remain relatively low-cost manufacturing economies, the reality is that having highly complex mould tools manufactured several thousand miles away from where they will be used is not a viable proposition.

With the threat of manufacturing moving offshore to China why then has Styles returned to the UK and invested his own hard-earned money in a British mouldmaking company?

Styles said: 'I am very confident that in Omega Plastics we have the necessary drive to build a very successful and profitable business, in spite of the Chinese.

Having lived and worked with these astonishingly wonderful people, I have been able to see the huge number of weaknesses and niches that are not being addressed in China.' He said: 'As product life spans become shorter, and with the need to get new products to market faster, the simple logistics of manufacturing complex components half way around the world do not make commercial sense.

Unfortunately, here in the UK we have allowed the main differentiator, namely highly skilled employees to be lost to manufacturing industry.

This is why at Omega Plastics we are laying down an open challenge to skilled toolmakers both here in the UK and from across Europe to accept our challenge of becoming a Master toolmaker in our state-of-the art manufacturing facility,' Much of Omega Plastics' current success is down to the role taken by its existing, four, Master Mouldmakers.

The company is unique in the way it manufactures its aluminium and P20 steel moulds and so requires individuals that are highly-skilled in the whole mouldmaking process, including design, manufacture and benching, and these are an extremely rare breed in Britain today.

To enable it to press home the advantages of manufacturing these highly technical products here in the UK Omega Plastics is working closely with the UK's trade body for the mouldmaking sector, The Gauge and Toolmakers Association (GTMA).