34 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk Annual Buyers’ Guide 2024 Special Focus: Talking Industry Review Until now, UK businesses have failed to capitalise on the opportunities presented by automation with industrial robots in the UK. Recent research by Boston Consulting Group identifies a significant gap between the ambitions of companies to implement robots and the actual implementation of systems. But the robotics and automation industry in the UK is still fast-growing, despite the on-going shortage of workers with competent skills to meet industry demand. Our expert panel explored the trends and implications of this growth and the necessary focus on academia and younger generations through STEM networks to help encourage interest in robotics and automation. Our Panelists were: Nikesh Mistry Sector Head Industrial Automation, GAMBICA; John Mackey Digitalisation Sales Specialist, Siemens; and debutant Gary Livingstone. CEO of LG Motion. As the UK distributor for Techman Robots, Gary has many open conversations with companies looking to integrate robot technology into their business. While what he calls the information-to-implementation gap can be significant, he feels it is closing fast: “LG motion are designers, manufacturers and integrators of motion control systems across a wide range of industries, from the film industry to medical development, to space and everything in between. So in short, we make things go in and out, up and down, round and round.” He continued: “Automation and robotics has been my career since I started as an engineering apprentice in 1986. “Robotics, autonomous and automation systems are increasingly crucial for the UK economy, with the potential to bring significant opportunities to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Often, the big thing we’re uncovering is a huge gap from information to implementation. Robots are not a silver bullet to solve every application, so to bridge the gap between ambition and implementation, it is crucial for businesses to conduct a thorough cost benefit analysis, particularly investing in employee training and upskilling. The key thing is to foster a culture of innovation and adaptation to overcome resistance to change. Given the UK’s reported low productivity, the shortage of workers across all sectors, why is there this seeming reluctance for the UK to invest in automation?” As Chair, Andy Pye highlighted the importance of ensuring that government should understand the importance of automation to the UK economy. He suggested that at some stage in the relatively near future, we’re going to have a change of government. So should we keep our powder dry for six months, or be putting a lot of effort into talking to the current government? John Mackey highlighted Siemens’ role in supporting customers in industry to adopt digitalisation technology - that may be simulation, artificial intelligence, or edge computing. A big part of this is automation and robotics. Siemens does not make robots but is at the periphery of an awful lot of them in manufacturing facilities: “As Gary has mentioned, there is this dichotomy of the skill set needed to get robots applications up and running, versus potentially where the robots are then coming in to do potentially low skilled work, in essence, repeatable tasks. But there’s an awful lot of challenges that immediately can be addressed that we’re seeing in industry with the adoption of robotics. “To touch on Gary’s point, the robot density Talking Industry Developments in robotics and automation Held on 14 November, the last Talking Industry* of 2023 revisited one of its most popular topics of robotics and automation, chaired Andy Pye.
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