ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the general trends in the industry, offers an assessment of its performance and the problems it faced, and emphasises the decline of the industry through an examination of the demise of its dominant 'player', Alfred Herbert. During the course of the 1970s, the number and size of companies in the British machine tool industry contracted, and the inability of its firms to meet demand had 'opened up the home market to importers, and had equally created problems for UK exports. The negative aspects of the British machine tool industry can be over-stressed. The data confirms the volatility of the machine tool industry, a feature that we have continually identified in the long-run history of the industry. Financial reconstruction was the cornerstone of the survival strategy, and this involved a complex set of negotiations with the Department of Trade and Industry and potential outside investors for a financial package.
