October 2019

News 0 8 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk October 2019 British engineering firm Babcock has been named as the preferred bidder to build five new frigates in a contract worth £1.25bn. The Type 31 warships will be built at the Rosyth dockyard in Fife where Babcock currently employs 1,500 people. It is expected to provide work for a further 1000-1250 in the supply chain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the plans in front of the HMS Belfast in London. He said: “I see the UK as a great shipbuilding nation – we already are but we want to expand it. “What it delivers is high quality jobs for young people - really high-skilled jobs for young people in this country - but also massive export opportunities of vessels that not only help to keep the peace but tackle piracy and help deal with immigration issues across the seas.” Building the new vessels would add to the 19 warships the Royal Navy current has in service and comes just months after a British- flagged ship was seized by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the strait of Hormuz. The contract will secure jobs at the Babcock-owner dockyard in Fife until 2028, on completion of the final ship. Two £6.2bn aircraft carriers under construction at the site are almost complete. As of 2019, SPS IPC Drives has a new name: SPS – Smart Production Solutions. While the title of the exhibition may have changed since its inception thirty years ago, the concept and areas of focus will stay the same and continue into the future. Despite the challenging economic climate ahead of this year’s SPS anniversary exhibition, the outlook for the trade show is still positive and testifies to the importance of the exhibition for smart and digital automation. Some 1650 automation technology providers from all over the world are expected as exhibitors in Nuremberg from 26th – 28th November 2019. The exhibition will showcase current products and solutions in industrial automation as well as trend-setting technologies of the future. Exhibition visitors will benefit from the wide range of products and services offered by national and international automation and digitalisation providers. Digitisation is having a major impact on the automation industry. Exhibitors will therefore present not only their solutions, but also various products and example applications for digital transformation at the event. IT providers are also increasingly represented at the SPS. The appeal is the strong emphasis on presenting the IT topics in cooperation with the automation companies. Topics such as big data, cloud technology, 5G and artificial intelligence are often presented jointly with automation providers on the basis of practical examples and demos. In addition, topic-related showcases and presentations at the exhibition forums help to illustrate digital transformation in the manufacturing industry. This year, the guided tours once again offer visitors from Germany and abroad the opportunity to visit exhibitors for a concise overview of specific topics, including machine learning and AI, product and machine simulation, industrial security in production, cloud ecosystems and predictive maintenance. The focus of the tours is on real use cases. For more information about the event, please visit: sps-exhibition.com SPS Exhibition celebrates 30th Anniversary British engineering firm secures £1.3bn Royal Navy ship contract

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