CHESHIRE business leaders are first in the country taking part in a trailblazing leadership programme designed to equip the skills to pursue smarter manufacturing.

They are part of the Made Smarter Leadership Programme, run in collaboration with Lancaster University Management School (LUMS) and the government-backed £20m Made Smarter initiative for North West manufacturers.

Alan Ryan, managing director of Technoprint, based in Winsford, Gerry Weston, Operations Director for DT Engineering in Widnes, Peter Phillips, IT Director for Abbey England in Knutsford, and Alex Lattimer, Sheet and Specialty Materials Director for Flexitallic in Ellesmere Port are among 12 business leaders from across the region who have embarked on an eight-month leadership programme involving a mixture of workshops, site-visits to 'smart' SME manufacturers around the region and facilitated-learning sessions.

During the programme, participants will enhance their leadership capacity helping them to take a strategic view required to adopt hi-tech and digitally-based manufacturing techniques into their own production processes.

They will also gain insights into undertaking an audit to reveal how digital-ready their business currently is, how to measure the true impact and value of any changes they make to the way they work, and how to successfully bring employees and other stakeholders along on their journey of business transformation.