June 2021

p Rubix , Europe’s largest supplier of MRO products and services, has acquired the business and assets of the Durham-based motor repairer, Advanced Industrial Rewinds (AIR). Details of the deal have not been revealed. John Lydon has been pointed general manager of AIR, which will operate independently as part of Rubix. AIR repairs gearboxes, pumps, fans and other equipment, as well as selling new products. It will expand Rubix’s presence in the North East of England. Rubix was created by the merger of Brammer and IPH in 2017. p The global market for collaborative robots (cobots) was worth $475m in 2020, and will soar with a CAGR of 32.5% to reach a value of $8bn by 2030, according to a new analysis by ABI Research . Universal Robots still dominates the cobot market, accounting for half of all shipments and generating revenues of $219m in 2020. ABI says challengers are starting to catch up. It adds that barriers between cobots and traditional robots are starting to break down, with some suppliers offeringmachines with both cobot and robot modes of operation. Cobots with heavier load capacities are also emerging. www.abiresearch.com p The Engineering Industries Association (EIA) has become part of the Manufacturing Technologies Association and will retain its independent identity under the MTA umbrella. Sir Ronald Halstead, who led the EIA for more than 25 years has retired, and the Association will now be headed by Karen Feingold. MTA CEO James Selka says the new arrangement will help to ensure the EIA’s longer-term sustainability, enhance support for member businesses, and give them a stronger voice in Government circles. p A Chinese industrial robotics start-up, Mech-Mind Robotics , has completed a funding round taking its total funding to more than $100m – making it one of the best-funded AI robotics start-ups. Founded in 2016, Mech-Mind now has almost 1,000 clients worldwide, andmore than 350 employees in China, Germany and Japan. It offers 3D vision technologies, deep learning algorithms andmotion planning capabilities, and claims to be“breathing new life into industrial robotics”. https://en.mech-mind.net p The global variable-frequency drive market will expand with a CAGR of 4.8% between 2020 and 2027, when it will be worth $25.2bn, according to a new study from Research Dive . General AC drives will account for half of the market (just over $12bn) with low-power drives being the fastest-growing segment and expected to be worth $7.8bn by 2027. HVAC systems are the largest application for VSDs and will expand with a CAGR of 5.1% from 2020-2027, according to Research Dive. www.researchdive.com n NEWS June 2021 www.drivesncontrols.com 6 Start-up brings analytics to any machine for £180 A SHEFFIELD start-up claims to have slashed the cost of entry to Industry 4.0 machinery analytics to less than £180, with the launch of a cloud-based app and sensor system that, it says, can analyse the performance of any machine and can be set up in less than five minutes. The company, called FourJaw Manufacturing Analytics, is a spin-out from the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University Sheffield. Manufacturers can connect the company’s MachineLink system to their CNC machines in a matter of minutes. All they need is power, WiFi and access to the machine’s power cables. They can install the system themselves, avoiding costly and disruptive site visits, and helping to reduce the ROI. Once running, the system provides immediate access to critical machine utilisation data including reasons for downtime and bottlenecks. In addition to the one-off purchase of the MachineLink hardware costing £179.99, there is a choice of choice of software subscriptions starting with a free offering, called FourJaw Lite, which provides live dashboards for up to three machines. Paid-for subscriptions, starting at £59.99 per month, remove the limit on machine numbers and add historic data. An optional extra, called MachineMode, adds a tablet on each machine where operators can log reasons for downtime. “We designed the app and hardware to be simple to install, and even simpler to use – less than four minutes for Industry 4.0,” says FourJaw’s co-founder and CEO, Chris Iveson. “This gives operators and ops managers immediate visibility of business critical data on a tablet, smartphone or laptop. “The beauty of the system is that it can be deployed on any machine, any age, any model, anywhere at any time,” he adds. “Whether it’s a workhorse Colchester lathe or a top-end Doosan, the data flows perfectly. All for less than £200 a machine. We even offer a no-cost ‘lite’ option to trial the kit – but no one has taken us up on that offer as the standard price is seen as no-brainer.” Iveson, formerly the AMRC’s IP and commercialisation manager, set up FourJaw last year with Robin Hartley, previously a project engineer at the Centre, who is chief technology officer. While working at the AMRC, they found that many manufacturers were tired of Industry 4.0 “hype”, feeling that it was always just out of reach to them. Hartley had developed a CNC data analytics platform to help colleagues at the Centre to measure and analyse their research. But manufacturers saw potential for the platform in their own businesses, so Iveson and Hartley set up FourJaw based on this technology. One early adopter is the Sheffield-based metal fabricator Edward Turner and Son, which has seen a five-fold boost to productivity in part of its operations since adopting the technology. “I am not going to spend my money on something that doesn’t work,” says managing director, Charles Turner. “If it doesn’t make a difference to my productivity and profitability, I am not interested. Plug the FourJaw system in and you will get direct, recognisable benefits today rather than pie-in- the-sky promises. ‘We knew about Industry 4.0 before we met FourJaw,”Turner adds. “But, to be frank, it seemed mostly academic buzzwords and marketing from expensive majors. FourJaw stripped through that by working with people like us to understand the real world of the shopfloor, rather than solutions invented by academia.” Another early adopter is the Chesterfield- based precision engineer, CBE+. “It’s an absolutely fabulous tech to use and has become an essential aspect of our production planning processes,” reports the company’s group operations director, Lindsay Atkins. “We are also using it for pricing,” he adds. “Sometimes, especially with a new job, we estimate production time based on similar components, but now we can see instantly how long the job actually takes. When we find we have overestimated, we are able to reduce our costs to the customer which helps us win new contracts. The simplicity of using FourJaw’s tech has convinced us to roll it out across the shop floor. It’s literally opening our eyes to see things for the first time.” www.fourjaw.com Cutting the cost of Industry 4.0 analytics: FourJaw’s co-founders Chris Iveson (right) and Robin Hartley (in the background) NEWS BRIEFS