September 2020

24 n CORONAVIRUS September 2020 www.drivesncontrols.com Manufacturing in a post-Covid world A s manufacturers restart their operations following the pandemic lockdown, the pressures of social distancing rules and mitigation measures are strengthening the case for the increased use of automation in production. According to Professor Alan Hedge of the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University in the US, open- plan offices and other traditional working environments are dead! Social distancing measures and home working have undermined our culture of open workspaces, leaving many to wonder if those days will ever return. Hedge has outlined his predictions in a White Paper entitled Adapt Global, Redesigning Workspaces Post Coronavirus . And a survey of 2,000 office workers by the controversial Chinese technology giant Huawei has found that almost nine out of 10 want to continue working from home at least part of the week. One in 10 even said they were working from a pub or beach! But while this might suit personnel such as sales staff, design engineers and administrators, matters on the shop floor are somewhat different! Frontline manufacturing staff cannot take their work to the relative safety of their homes. The newmanufacturing landscape demands that companies protect workers’ safety, at the same time as safeguarding the operational viability of their businesses. It is not just a case of re-establishing operating processes with new standards; the safety of each individual employee, in terms of social distancing, will also be a much more important consideration in future. Digital transformation One way is to move towards the“zero-paper” factory by adopting digitalisation and increasing levels of automation. The possibilities of running manufacturing operations virtually, remotely or with minimum human intervention, are becoming increasingly attractive. But, according to the UK IT specialist, Prism, only 10% of British manufacturers are“Covid-19 fit-for-purpose”, and two-thirds have only just started – or have yet to embark – on a journey of digital transformation. In aWhite Paper called Manufacturers andDigital Transformation: The Enabling Force in aDisruptiveWorld , Prsim argues that these manufacturers still need to implement disruptive forces such as Industry 4.0 or Industrial IoT, and to deploy technologies such as machine learning, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, virtual reality, and additive manufacturing. Team structures on the factory floor will need to change, and we will see the introduction of“pod”environments, where workspaces are physically and socially separated from each other, and plant staff organised into self-contained teams with clearly defined tasks. This will remove“floating”staff from the factory floor, while individual staff members will become responsible for collecting their own materials and doing their own routine quality checks and maintenance. New guidelines, including physical barriers being installed on the factory floor, will see increasing use of video or augmented reality technologies to monitor operations, and for quality inspections. Some British manufacturers have set up short-term crisis-management mechanisms. In some instances, the pandemic has even acted as a catalyst for growth, change and improvement, with companies re-assessing their operations and coming up with newways of working. Made Smarter, the industrial digitalisation movement that is working in partnership with the UK government, has produced an extensive guide explaining how SME manufacturers can try to maintain continuity and future-proof their businesses. Called Covid- 19: What you can do tomaintain continuity and future-proof your manufacturing SME, it is available fromwww.madesmarter.uk . A LinkedIn forum has also been set up for the manufacturing community to share their challenges and help solve problems with the support of their peers. For example, Storth, a Carnforth-based manufacturer of agricultural machinery for slurry management, has worked with Made Smarter to introduce a robotic welding system into its production line, allowing it to continue operating when its welding staff were self- isolating. As we emerge from the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, manufacturers are having to change the ways they work. Consultant editor Andy Pye looks at how manufacturers are adapting to the new era, and reports on some of the technologies they using to help them. Ensuring social distancing on shop floors is part of the“new normal”of post-Covid manufacturing Photo: Siemens