Innovation and Competitiveness in Portable Power Tools

Portable power tools make up one of the smallest sectors of the machine-building industry; worldwide, the sector employs fewer than 50,000 people. Nevertheless, it illustrates a number of features of wider significance: the process of mechanisation; the long-term economic significance of continuous, small-step improvements in technology based on a sustained commitment to design and development; a long-standing British backwardness in developing and adopting innovations.