Robots arise as British manufacturing rebuilds02 February 2012

The number of robots in UK production plants is growing at an unprecedented rate, as manufacturing industry responds to the demands of a globalised and even more competitive future.

That was the chief assertion at a seminar organised by Mitsubishi Electric, Cognex Vision and the British Automation and Robot Association, which looked at developments in the field.

Commenting on the government's drive to rebalance Britain's economy in a non-low wage environment, Barry Weller, a robots product manager with Mitsubishi Electric, noted that automated factories are essential for competitiveness.

"Parts of British manufacturing are already highly automated," he said. "This tends to be plant and machinery for high volume manufacturing and in the processing industries. But we are really only just discovering the advantages of robots."

Weller predicts that this year will see about 1,000 new robots installed in Britain – creating, not destroying, 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs.

"We used to think that robots put people out of work, but perceptions have matured now and we understand that they allow manufacturers to expand, thus creating new jobs," he explained.

However, competitor nations are also taking to robots, the seminar heard. China, for instance, installed 14,000 robots last year and other industrialising nations are following suit, despite their low wage structures. Within Europe, Germany has 145,000 robots in non-automotive applications; Italy 62,000; France 34,000; and Spain 29,000. Britain has just 14,000.

"Globally there are 1,000,000 robots in manufacturing industry," stated Mike Wilson of the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA). "According to MetraMartech, a UK market research organisation, these have created almost 3,000,000 jobs," he added.

But robots become even more capable when integrated with other technologies, saide Leigh Jordan of vision specialist Cognex UK. "A robot with vision capabilities can identify the exact location and orientation of work pieces and adapt its actions accordingly," he explained.

"This is already common in industry, while increasing miniaturisation and new sensing capabilities will make robots even more capable. They will be able to do more complicated tasks, a greater variety of functions and will find their way into new industries," he forecast.

UK government is underpinning robot adoption by providing funding and support, under the Automating Manufacturing Programme, to be run by BARA.

"The idea is to build a widespread knowledge base of what automation and robotics can deliver and a willingness to always consider it as an investment option," said Wilson.

One problem identified: research suggests that British management wants to see a return on automation investments in two years, whereas in most other countries a five year window is accepted.

"Clearly this needs to be addressed, but it should also be noted that British managers lead the world in the adoption of lean manufacturing techniques," commented Wilson. "They are very good at doing more with less, but find capital investment rather harder."

Brian Tinham

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