November/ December 2021

25TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION FOCUS 36 HYDRAULICS & PNEUMATICS November/December 2021 www.hpmag.co.uk things called ‘European Directives’”. “Having been told ‘there’s nothing to worry about, we’re excluded’, it was with some alarm I opened the published legislation to find we absolutely were covered, and a lot of work ensued. 25 years later, an awful lot more work – equally confusing – is going into disentangling ourselves from the blessed things. I did find, however, that access to an industry magazine was a tremendously effective vehicle for promptly communicating the many developments to the wider industry.” He eventually moved onto pastures new, and immediately discovered that the world of process flow control, although intriguingly different, was reassuringly similar, with many synergies. “The need for a UK journal for valves was clear, and having learned my lessons, I had BVAA step-up to provide it,” says Bartlett. “In this industry, too, we were on the cusp of a series of innovations and developments that transformed the industry. Some of them involved more sophisticated control, but then also developments like wireless enablement and data analysis to facilitate predictive maintenance schedules. My direct contact with the fluid power industry, and the magazine that supported it, was never lost, however, and I have enjoyed the invitation to make the occasional contribution, such as this, to this day.” Control and automation Continuing the theme of technological transformation in our industry, John Farmer, president, the BFPA, believes one area that has certainly seen major development over the past couple of decades or so has been the growing relationship between fluid power equipment and control and automation technology. “With the industrial internet of things (IIoT), for example, we now see more sensors on pumps and cylinders etc in order to closely monitor their performance and provide production or maintenance engineers with valuable information related to their current health status – pointing out in near real time if there is an alignment issue, or whether the part is overheating or if something needs replacing and so on. This can prove to be invaluable for avoiding expensive unforeseen downtime.” Indeed, along with IIoT, Farmer reflects that we now hear more about artificial intelligence, machine learning, greater overall system connectivity, remote monitoring, control through Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in general. “This is all a far cry from what was available back in the 1990s,” he says. “Even over the past decade or more recently, developments have come on leaps and bounds. Although this technology is becoming more effective and more affordable, I have to say that UK companies are somewhat behind our counterparts in the US and Germany. We are seeing increasing levels of uptake, but I would like this to occur more quickly. The business and operational benefits are now well-proven.” Relationship between design and manufacturing Mark Crowther, sales director, Custom Fittings Ltd, points out that at the company the relationship between design and manufacturing has changed considerably over the past couple of decades. “Our CNC production machines are now connected directly to our computer-aided design software (CAD), so drawings are now sent directly to the CNC machines,” he explains. “Previously, we needed to pre-load design programs into the CNC machines. The CAD system is such that the CNC machines recognise the drawings and virtually programme themselves, although some human interaction is still needed. This certainly saves a considerable amount of time in setting up the machines for production.” Advanced valve island technology Stephen Wright, managing director. Thorite, makes the point that two decades ago we only had fairly basic electro- pneumatic systems and large valve manifolds available on the market. “Now, we have easily installed and very technologically advanced valve island technology,” he says. “These valve islands are becoming increasingly small and can be integrated easily into background management systems. Some 10 years or so ago it was mainly the manufacturers who were providing this type of equipment. Now, as a distributor we at Thorite are providing these types of valve islands as well. So, we’re getting closer to the coalface technologically, and rightfully so because everything now is being more closely controlled electronically by mini embedded computers and so on. This is all bread- and-butter for us now whereas only a decade ago it would probably have been at the edge of what we could do and two decades ago it was only a very clever manufacturer that was able to offer this kind of solution.” Wright explains that, today, Thorite is more involved in electrical actuation too. “If you look back about 15 years, many people in our industry believed pneumatic cylinders would be phased out completely over the next couple of years by electrical actuation,” he says. “However, this never happened – partly because the price point wasn’t there. Many companies already had an installed compressed air base, and they knew pneumatics was comparatively cheap and easy to use. On the other hand, to do anything with electric actuation involved an investment of thousands of pounds plus. There’s now more of a convergence in that cost so we’re pushing increasingly down that direction as well. That’s not to say pneumatic actuation is going away, however it’s certainly the case that electric actuation is more appropriate in more circumstances now. At one point it wasn’t as much the cost of the electrical actuators but the cost of the controllers of the digital equipment. That element is now also becoming more cost-effective.” Wright also sees more uptake of digitally transformative technology. However, he believes the first users of technology involving, for example, the industrial internet of things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, are mainly the bigger companies, then once more successful use cases become known, more SMEs then tend to consider the benefits more and start to invest. “The level of convenience and ease of use of this technology is becoming greater all the time,” he says. “With regard to electrical actuation, users can effectively create controllers by installing an app on their mobile phone. This type of technology often gets deployed in ways many people Mark Crowther, sales director, Custom Fittings Ltd. Seb Cole, sales manager, Tom Parker Ltd.