November 2020

12 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk November 2020 Insight Increasing automation in the post-COVID Era The theme of the second in the series of Talking Industry panel discussions was Increasing Automation in the post-COVID era. Chairman Andy Pye reflects on a session which set out to look forward to the opportunities, but couldn’t quite shake off the barriers from the past. T his month’s Talking Industry event was extremely engaging in the amount of discussion generated in the Chat alongside the live debate, so much so that we were unable to cover all the points raised in the allocated time. Subsequently the debates continued post-event via LinkedIn. One important question during the event set the scene by asking the very basic question of “what do we mean by automation?” I posed this to Brendan O’Dowd, Analog Devices: “That’s a great question,” he said. “And to me, it’s everything from the simplest jig that enables you to drill holes more repeatedly, all the way up to your dark factory that you know, doesn’t have a single person inside and is completely automated. It’s anything that that helps do a job more easily. “We want to take some of the dirty dangerous jobs away from people and automate them. But there’s a huge gap in terms of the higher skilled roles that are required to develop the systems, manage and run them and keep them operating. And making sure that you can operate automated systems safely is one of the barriers - if you have to put a big cage around everything, then it hits productivity. “The bottom line is, these are all return on investment decisions that are made by companies, who need to spend money upfront. Machine flexibility is key. There are plenty of places where a flexible robot or Cobot can do different tasks and this is a way that you can leapfrog your competition.” Continuing the overall theme around barriers to entry within automation, and why the UK is falling behind our global competitors and not adopting a higher uptake of automation and robotics, Kamran Anwar, business development manager - Strategic Solutions at Mitsubishi Electric Europe BV. Commented: “I do feel UK companies have a different attitude to manufacturing than other countries around Europe. One example is a company in Central Europe were testing AI and ML to reduce waste and boost productivity, yet the same company in the UK were focusing on ‘sweating their assets’.” He added: “ Most UK manufacturers (may be the same abroad) want a machine to last 10-15 years but want an ROI of 1-2 years…in many cases, this is an unrealistic expectation, especially for bespoke solutions. So typically companies choose a cheaper solution to meet ROI and get CapEx approved, then a few months down line the client isn’t happy as their initial requirements are not met, so they modify the line/machine to meet the same requirements as before and this whole process ends up costing more and taking longer. “Apart from culture, most companies want a reference of that new technology installed to have confidence and manage their risk. However, none of the major automation or robotics vendors have their Global/EMEA HQs based in the UK (to my knowledge) so during the POC stage we’d often rely on support from our colleagues based in Global/EMEA HQs. Because of this structure the UK will continue to play catch up regarding the adoption of new technology.” Mark Buckland, UK functional unit manager at Contec - Industrial Automation Solutions, Talking Industry