July/August 2020

general fears about how to keep their business running and who could be in the plant.” In the last couple of months, Robinson has noted an acceleration towards automation, with customers taking weeks and months to approve development projects that used to take months and years. “These journeys are essentially what we would have recommended as good business practice to enhance productivity, cost savings and flexibility, and to enable faster decision-making when dealing with something like COVID. People are also finding ways of managing a factory from afar, whether fishing by a riverbank, stuck at home, actually in the office.” A European perspective was provided by Ixon’s Job Euwers. Ixon is a Dutch company based in Overloon, which is between Einhoven and Nijmegen. “In the Netherlands, our experience was not that harsh; we had people coming to the office, though the majority started to work at home from March,” he said. But the situation I his sales office in Italy was different. “Italy got hit early and really hard. Since manufacturers went into total lockdown, our activity there fell to almost zero. But now we are seeing an acceleration in the adoption of innovation, not only in Italy, but in other countries as well - at least there is a silver lining to come out of a terrible event.” As far as is possible, our panelists see some positives for industry coming out of CoVID, though there are caveats: “It’s quite difficult to predict the future any more and plan ahead,” said Euwers. “Businesses are living from month to month and waiting to see what will happen.” Mistry agreed: “We are now seeing a massive increase in people returning to work in their usual workplace. But as Tony [Pickering} mentioned, for other staff, the reaction to working from home as normal has been really, really positive.” The conversation then progressed on to discuss predictive maintenance, the role of Government, artificial intelligence and machine learning. It featured an interesting section on why people will invest in automation at home, but are reluctant to do so at work. Listen On-Demand HERE! Monday and there was a lot of anxiety about what ‘essential work’ meant. We took a straw poll and sent all 700 staff home because people were just super-nervous. And then we spent the next three weeks laying out the factories in a socially distanced way. This is where we got headlined on the BBC News - we are now part of the Government guidelines. We’ve got shift patterns, one-way systems, shielding, even handles on toilet doors operated by your feet!” “And now we’ve got the same situation in our Miami factory,” Pickering continued. “This is a bigger challenge, because the way the US are running their society - we have social distancing to the nth degree in the factory, yet you can walk out of the factory premises and you’re into a bar or onto the beach!” The theme of remote working and the automated factory was taken up by Novatec’s Sean Robinson. “Novatec spent the first two weeks of the formal lockdown period and a week or so before that in planning sessions with customers concerned about continuity and disaster recovery,” he stated. “Many had 14 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk July/August 2020 Talking Industry Review The Talking Industry panel Anthony (Tony) Pickering, President, Control Techniques With more than 25 years’ experience working at a senior level for some of the biggest names in the industry – including Schneider, Danfoss and Lenze – Tony takes great pride in being a true drives specialist. Now, as President of Control Techniques – part of the Nidec group – he is responsible for growing one of the industry’s best-known and most innovative brands. Andrew Jones, End-Use Sales Manager, HP 3D Multi Jet Fusion Andrew has more than 10 years of experience in the additive manufacturing industry, including experience with most major polymer technologies, as well as metal printing. He has dealt with end-use projects in the aerospace, automotive and the consumer industries, and guided companies along their additive journeys. He believes that meaningful applications using additive manufacturing can transform how we design, purchase and use everyday things. Nikesh Mistry, Sector Head of Industrial Automation, GAMBICA GAMBICA is the UK trade association for Instrumentation, Control, Automation and Laboratory Technology. While relatively new to the trade association world, Nikesh has developed an extensive understanding of both the technical and commercial areas of the manufacturing and automation industry. Nikesh believes that, with the right mindset and use of innovation, the UK will excel throughout the fourth industrial revolution. Job Euwes, Commercial Manager, IXON Dialling in from the Netherlands, Job started the International Core Sales Team which is now responsible for almost 70% of sales at IXON. His vision is that the world can – and will – be connected and that innovation in industrial IoT should be kept simple and small. Understanding the possibilities that today’s technology offer is simply taking that small first step. Sean Robinson, Manager, Software Solutions, Novotek UK and Ireland With nearly three decades’ experience in the automation and controls sector, Sean has delivered projects across North America and Europe and is the “go to” person at Novotek for software solutions in industrial IT and automation, specialising in manufacturing execution systems. Andy Pye, Webinar Chair and Consulting Editor, DFA Media Andy is known to many in the engineering and automation industry in the UK and has edited many leading design and manufacturing titles over the past four decades. Andy is a graduate material engineer and spent five years in engineering consultancy prior to joining the technical publishing industry in 1980 To download the inaugural Talking Industry digital broadcast please visit: https://tinyurl.com/TalkingIndustryDownload1