May 2019

www.smartmachinesandfactories.com May 2019 | 25 | | STRATEGIES – GAMBICA three-part digitalisation series | “I magine I’m a manufacturer”, I told the group, “how do I start my Smart Manufacturing journey?” I ask, naively premature, as it turned out, “Are you actually ready to start?” Chris Evans, Mitsubishi Electric’s marketing and operations group manager asked immediately exposing the complexity of the issue. While there has been a lot of chatter about smart manufacturing, many people still don’t understand what they need from a practical point of view. And that is just people who want to implement IIOT (Industrial Internet of Things) within their processes – which is not by any means everyone. There is a widely held view that the UK is a low and slow adopter of technology into its manufacturing sector. Though it is difficult to quantify how ‘tech savvy’ a manufacturer is, the robot index (number of industrial robots per A practical journey to a digital future – part one Victoria Montag – sector head for Industrial Automation, GAMBICA, begins the special three-part GAMBICA serialisation of the King Power Stadium discussions on digitalisation.