Mendez creates website for DTI

Last week the Department of Trade and Industry launched a manufacturing website, created by Mendez, to offer expert advice and information to manufacturers. The website, www.dti.gov.uk/manufacturing, invites manufacturers to join a national database of manufacturing expertise and also provides information on the Government’s Manufacturing Advisory Service.

MAS has been set up to enable smalland medium-sized enterprises to improve productivity and competitiveness by giving these companies access to expert advice and assistance. Funding worth £15m for the service was announced in this year’s White Paper, Opportunity for All in a World of Change.

But a DTI spokesman says the site will be developed over the next few months. “The future site that will serve MAS will involve a new look and feel at some stage,” he says.

“For the moment the site is a recruitment site for the service and is aimed at people in universities, trade associations, chambers of commerce and the like.

“The next phase will be to have a site aimed at businesses who have an interest in manufacturing,” according to the DTI spokesman.

The current site is very text-heavy, but the spokesman defends the decision to place content over creativity. “The creative element is not the major issue. The site has been designed for accessibility, not for 17-year-old surfers with a short attention span,” he says.

No fee was disclosed for the work, which Mendez won as a result of a previous agreement it has with the DTI.

Internet publications manager Steve Guthrie says that depending on levels of response, the DTI will consider spinning the manufacturing site off so it no longer sits within the DTI’s overall website.