News August/September 2025 www.pwemag.co.uk Plant & Works Engineering | 07 A new report, Making it Smarter: Global lessons for Accelerating Automation and Digital Adoption in UK Manufacturing, launched by Make UK and Sage reveals that nearly half of British manufacturers identify a lack of technical skills as the biggest hurdle to improving their use of innovative advanced technologies. Those projects which do start often stall after implementation stage, because companies cannot find the help and advice they need to make the technologies work well. Countries where all SME innovation funding and advice is held under one easy-toaccess ‘umbrella hub’ have dramatically higher success rates. The Government’s recent Industrial Strategy sets out how it will create a digitally literate workforce by 2035, but we simply can’t wait ten years for this to happen. Make UK is calling on Government to embed targeted funding for digital skills needed in manufacturing and engineering to accompany the existing £100m already set aside for engineering skills. For decades, South Korea has been undergoing a successful automation drive to transition from legacy production methods to advanced digitalised factories. It has stuck religiously to a single strategy, concentrating on education, infrastructure and innovation. The Government provides SMEs with bespoke incentives – offering easy to access R&D tax incentives of 30% for companies investing in semiconductor facilities, and broader tax credits guaranteed to 2029 and beyond. The South Korean Government also saw the need to make education work for industry – providing the employees to power the technologies. It committed to training 40,000 people to operate fully automated production systems and there are now no skills shortages in technical and digital innovation. The rewards are high; firms adopting smart technologies see a 25% increase in productivity and a 27% drop in defects. Singapore underwent a similar transformation, now a global leader in high-value advanced manufacturing, concentrating on the lucrative semiconductor market, precision engineering, pharmaceuticals and clean energy. Singapore’s pro-innovation environment delivers some of the most generous R&D tax incentives in the world, where companies can claim up to 400% tax deductions on local R&D or opt for a 20% cash payout. The incentives are embedded in a long-term industrial policy, giving SMEs and start-ups greater cashflow certainty and the ability to grow to their full potential. With a population no larger than London’s, Switzerland delivers a manufacturing output of around £150 billion — astonishingly close to the UK’s £217 billion. This remarkable productivity stems from a national strategy that prioritises advanced technologies, SME competitiveness, and long-term innovation. By MAKE UK chief executive, Stephen Phipson MAKE uk - the manufacturers’ organisation monthly news comment Aggreko has strengthened its industrial HVAC and process temperature specialist support with the appointment of Chris Smith as Head of Temperature Control for the UK and Ireland. Bringing over 22 years of experience at Aggreko across Europe, Chris is set to lead Aggreko’s support for industrial HVAC contractors, engineers and facilities management companies across sectors, including manufacturing, data centres and construction. This includes providing temporary and supplementary cooling, heating and dehumidification solutions to assist on sites during maintenance works, system upgrades, temperature spikes and in emergency outages. The appointment comes as companies across the UK and Ireland continue to experience operational and process temperature challenges caused by changing weather patterns throughout the year. With the high temperatures spikes experienced over the summer, there is increasing strain on HVAC systems across industries, resulting in further demand on contractors to provide reliable and efficient temporary solutions while balancing vital maintenance and upgrade schedules. Responding to this, Aggreko has strengthened its capacity to support contractors and facilities management companies – both in fleet and developing the expertise in order that solutions are correctly specified – to ensure that sites have the resilience need. Speaking on his appointment, Chris said: “It’s great to lead our expert teams in supporting industrial HVAC professionals and facilities managers across the UK and Ireland with their temperature control needs. With unrivalled experience in the power sector, Aggreko is best placed to ensure that our solutions are powered to operate as efficiently and sustainably as possible. Our experience in across Europe, where extreme temperatures and changing weather patterns are more common, we are accustomed to help our customers handle any challenges that may present themselves across the year. “We are able to also achieve better optimisation and efficiency to deliver both cost and environmental savings through data collected through our control and monitoring solution, Aggreko Connect. “I’m ready to hit the ground running and help our customers futureproof their industrial HYVAC and process temperature control solutions so that it can combat any weather throughout the year.” Aggreko strengthens UK & Ireland HVAC support with new head of temperature control Chris Smith, Aggreko Head of Temperature Control for UK and Ireland
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