Manufacturing on Auto-Pilot

The Annual Manufacturing Report 2014 was released last week. It surveyed 182 UK manufacturers in Q4 2013 across five key areas: Economy, policy and risk; Finance; Automation; Skills; and ICT. It found most in pretty optimistic mood ahead of 2014.

One area of interest was the rise in automation in manufacturing over the last 5 years. Over 75% of those surveyed said they had implemented a form of automation in that time.

The below chart indicates the main objectives cited by manufacturers for using automation.

Although cost cutting is often a goal of automation, in this instance it appears to have as much to do with the inability to recruit skilled employees as it does with making savings.  Indeed, the report implies as much, but also points out that of those companies surveyed a huge 68% fail to provide accredited training to more than 90% of their staff.

Whatever the case – the inability of the education system to produce sufficient engineers, or the lack of investment in employee training – it’s clear that levels of automation are going to increase in the future.  This brings with it the need for ever greater vigilance in terms of machine health, using techniques such as automatic vibration monitoring to ensure that changes in operating conditions are identified at an early stage, enabling them to be rectified at a time when perhaps increasingly rare skilled engineers are available.