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Adding value for members
Diversity in steel membership
All members have an equal opportunity to participate in the formulation of views and have an important role to play in shaping policies aimed at ensuring the best interests of the sector.
A third of UK Steel Association members are foreign owned, 80% have overseas interests, either directly or through joint ventures. All are involved in export markets in one way or another.
The Association brings this diversity of size, process and end-user together through ten different product groups that reflect its members' markets, providing tailored market analysis to put the UK scene into perspective. Broader issues that spread across all or some of these groups are handled by expert committees, for example on the environment, exports or health and safety.
There is increasing pressure on organisations representing manufacturing interests to come together to be more effective in their lobbying. Action on the Climate Change Levy and the strength of Sterling are two cases in point. At the same time, UK Steel is also finding that steel's distinctive culture and economics are shared by many different types of organisation. These are strong drivers for co-operation in other areas too.
UK Steel aims to provide a base that gives all types of organisation the flexibility either to join directly, or to align themselves with us on certain activities, and then to maintain their independence and identity on others where this makes sense.
As a result, the Association has strong links in the UK and in Europe with other representative organisations whose members use steel, and even into more broadly based industry, given steel's key importance to manufacturing.
Technical standards
 The Reebok Stadium, Bolton © Corus Group plc |
With globalisation and customer innovation as just two of the pressures pushing the development of technical standards, members make full use of the unrivalled service that the Association provides in this area. Over 200 member company representatives participate in the general standards-making process on BSI, ECISS and ISO committees, co-ordinated and supported by the Association's Standards' Office. |
The Standards' Office also handles technical and purchasing enquiries from 'customers', ranging from users/specifiers to commercial officers in UK embassies overseas, matching queries to products and producer companies, whilst promoting the use of modern steel specifications.
Other services
As might be expected, environmental and energy issues are amongst the most important handled by the Association's expert groups.
Here are some other examples.
- Twice a year, the Steel Demand Forecasting Group brings members together with representatives from the CBI, HM Treasury and the engineering, construction and automotive sectors to examine prospects for steel demand over the six months ahead. These are important data for manufacturing industry.
- The Steel Export Forum runs overseas missions each year, bolstered by occasional seminars. Core participation is by members, who also the select the target markets with active DTI support. But they are also open to other groups in the steel supply chain, which reinforces the value of missions to the participants and the target markets.
- Separate discussions, in committees responsible for Health & Safety and Transport & Logistics, identified a serious safety issue resulting from the use of 'Frame Tilt' vehicles - a particular type and design of road lorry used for the transportation of certain steel products. An Association working group, of steel producers and road hauliers, is now seeking to resolve this issue with the assistance of the Freight Transport Association.
Members can access these and other committee details as well as information about industry events, such as the Steel Forum and Annual Conference, through the private service, which is password protected on the Association's website.
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© UK Steel Association,
2000
email:
webmaster@uksteel.org.uk
Last updated: 3rd February 2000