July August hi-res with ads

www.machineryupdate.co.uk JULY/AUGUST 2018 MACHINERY UPDATE 37
Feature: Automation, robotics and vision
Will Brexit bring a
change in attitudes
to automation?
There cannot be many
people who wouldn’t
mind a day without
hearing anything about
Brexit, especially as it
is usually doom and gloom, but
it seems that one positive coming
out of the whole saga is a new
willingness in some UK quarters
to invest in automation, robotics
and vision systems.
And if this 40-odd page feature
is anything to go by…new
technology, new ways of working,
new products, new installations
and new safety implications are
just some of the topics covered…
then the future is bright!
If the referendum to leave Europe
put many investment projects
on hold, post Brexit the picture
was much rosier at the end of last
year for automation and robotics
company CKF Systems. “There
is clearly a change in attitude,
resulting from Brexit, with
manufacturers more willing to
look within the UK for engineering
expertise to support their
investment projects,” explains
Kevin Staines, sales director at
the company. “There is also
a growing realisation that elevated
cost pressures, including wages
and labour scarcity are here for
the long haul.”
RESISTANT TO ANY CHANGES
He believes that this is encouraging
more businesses to invest in
automation, including SMEs
who had previously been resistant
to this type of change.
Although widely embraced by
consumers, deployment of digital
technologies in industrial settings,
particularly in multi-site food
factories has been slower
to materialise, yet things are
starting to shift, according to
Phil Brown, managing director
of metal detector company
Fortress Technology.
Watching Industry 4.0 gain
traction, Brown believes that we
become paralysed by technology
Roadmap to
connectivity
It’s tricky for
many SMEs to
negotiate a
path towards
a connected way
of working but
it has to be
done to stay
competitive
options, and as a result, data
integration projects can stretch
on for months, years, or never
reach a conclusion. “In such
a fast moving market like food,
the impact on competitiveness
could be immense,” he says.
And although there is renewed
optimism across the sector,
Mark Gray from Universal Robots
thinks the adoption of collaborative
robots, the so-called cobot, is
gaining acceptance in UK industry
very slowly. In many ways, he says,
a cobot is like a new colleague –
a colleague that loyally takes on
the tasks that most people find
trivial and physically debilitating.
Industry 4.0 is evolution
not revolution and as such,
can be scaled to suit demands
“The manager is the industrial
worker who has an overview
of where the cobot should be as
part of manufacturing,” he says.
Historically, traditional robots
have not always brought the
flexibility required by companies
in meeting their ever-changing
customer demands but, says James
Bedford of Multivac UK, today
this can be overcome with a
simple set of new grippers
so that production is not lost.
Another interesting point made
during this feature is the fact
that robotics and automation
is a fantastic hook in attracting
young people, dubbed the xbox
generation, to the manufacturing
sector. Tech-savvy youngsters are
attracted to work for companies
that are tech-savvy themselves,
and not resistant to new ways
of working.
We hope you find the feature,
useful in shaping your future.