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UK MANUFACTURERS NOT LEVERAGING FULL POTENTIAL OF DIGITISATION SAYS REPORT U


K manufacturers are applying new technologies to their


operations, but must do more to avoid being further outmaneuvered by global competitors who are fast becoming digital champions. That’s the main finding of new analysis from PwC’s Strategy&. The Strategy& study, Digital


Champions: How industry leaders build integrated operations ecosystems to deliver end-to-end customer solutions, reveals that UK manufacturers currently demonstrate a sound level of digital ecosystem maturity, with adoption of technologies from predictive maintenance and manufacturing execution systems, to connectivity and the Industrial Internet of Things. But they have a lot of catching up to do, only one per


cent of UK firms have attained ‘digital champion’ status compared to 19 per cent of Asian companies and 11 per cent of businesses in the Americas. Over 1,155 executives at global


manufacturing companies in 26 countries, including 72 in the UK, were asked about their views on Industry 4.0 and digital operations. The survey concluded that digital champions are those firms already investing and focusing more on digital operations as well as digital product and service offerings. The surveyed companies expect


rich rewards by investing in digital operations and digital product and service offerings. UK manufacturers expect an average 10.8 per cent revenue boost and 9.3 per cent increase in cost efficiencies over the


next five years, as well as an increase in productivity. Darren Jukes, PwC UK’s industrial


manufacturing and services leader and Industry 4.0 champion, said: “While the UK’s Industrial Strategy reinforces the huge potential technology can offer, making radical shifts across the manufacturing process or supply chain is neither quick nor easy to implement. As this report shows, there is also a risk that if UK companies don’t pick up the pace, they could find themselves outmaneuvered by digital champions in other territories. “Employees are a crucial cog in this


digital evolution - they enable and support the efforts of a company’s strategic direction, solutions, performance and operations.


“As they navigate this transformational road ahead, firms must not only assess the status quo of their workforce, advancing the best and brightest and most digitally-oriented existing talent while training others to match these skills, but inject new talent into the organisation where gaps in people’s skill sets are revealed.” Dr Reinhard Geissbauer, partner


at PwC Germany and co-author of the report, said: “Asian companies are far outmaneuvering their Western counterparts because they have the advantage of setting up robust digital operations from essentially a blank slate in terms of factory automation, workforce and even organisation information technology networks.


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PP Control & Automation is providing Hedinn, one of Iceland’s key suppliers to the fishing sector, with early-stage design support and electrical control systems build for the production of its Hedinn Protein Plant (HPP). These machines make fishmeal and fish oil production on land or sea more economical and efficient and are already installed in Icelandic vessel Solberg and German vessel Berlin.


www.ppcanda.com


Robotics specialist Sewtec has appointed new heads of finance and business support as the company implements a growth plan which will see it double its turnover to £32m in five years. Lizzie Hay joins the high technology company as head of finance, whilst Mark Atkins joins as new head of business support.


www.sewtec.co.uk


Sentryo, a leader in cybersecurity for the Industrial Internet, has announced a worldwide distribution agreement with Siemens AG. Under this agreement Siemens AG will offer Sentryo ICS CyberVision, the leading- edge asset discovery and anomaly detection solution, as part of its industrial cybersecurity product & service portfolio.


www.sentryo.net


ABB has won Manufacturer of the Year at the Motion Control Industry (MCI) awards for the second year running. The award recognises ABB’s commitment to developing technologies and services that help improve the performance of motor- driven applications across diverse industries, from food & beverage and packaging to water and oil & gas.


www.abb.com 4 MAY 2018 | FACTORY EQUIPMENT MITSUBISHI BRIDGES UK SKILLS GAP WITH ITS OWN TRAINING ACADEMY U


ntil now Mitsubishi Electric has been coy about promoting


its UK training academy until it had started to deliver real results. This year, however, the company has agreed to talk about the remarkable success the Diamond Link Training Academy (DLTA) has achieved both for the company, and its graduates. Mitsubishi Electric’s divisional


manager for automation systems, Roger Payne, and two other senior colleagues based at UK company HQ in Hatfield were instrumental in establishing the DLTA. Roger is clear that their effort has been rewarded, “What we know now three years into the project, is that it has worked extremely well for us and for the people that have progressed through it. Jobs have been created, people trained and important positions filled, giving them great employment prospects and investing in the future of Mitsubishi Electric


UK at the same time. Compared to a more conventional recruitment and training drive we saw an ROI in just the second year, which is remarkable. The aim now we have an established programme is to promote the benefits and highlight how it is different to other paths into the industry.” With reference to the UK skills


gap, “There is no denying that there is a skills gap in the current 35-45 age bracket when it comes to engineering and electronics, however there was much done from the mid-90s onwards to re-engage people with a bias towards technical subjects, and there are currently some good government backed apprenticeship and vocational learning opportunities out there. So, it wasn’t the lack of technical knowledge in the younger generation that drove the need for the DLTA to be set-up in the first place, it was a combination of sales


acumen and technical ability that we needed. We decided to go it alone because we realised that being a good sales or application engineer requires a special mix of talents, education and experience and no one single course at colleges or universities seemed to offer that combination of learning.” The intake requirements for each year of the DLTA are advertised by Mitsubishi Electric and by training partner BMS, there is a formal and an informal aspect to the application process and all potential candidates are advised to get involved and talk to the teams involved as a first step.


B


INDUSTRY CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO SAVE APPRENTICESHIP LEVY Making the call, EEF head of education & skills policy,


ritain’s manufacturers are calling for an urgent summit with Government to discuss fundamental


reforms to make the Apprenticeship Levy work, and to ensure the creation of additional numbers of high value manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships. The call comes on the back of a survey by EEF, the


manufacturers’ organisation, showing overwhelming support for sweeping reforms to the operation of the Levy and the latest figures for overall apprenticeship starts showing a 31 per cent fall in for January 2018 compared to the same period last year.


Verity Davidge, said: “Everyone shares the ambition of creating high quality apprenticeships which are essential if industry is going to access the skills it will need in the future, especially post-Brexit when fewer skilled workers will come to the UK.” According to the survey just five per cent of companies


want to leave the Levy as it is. The majority (52 per cent) want to keep the Levy, but see improvements made to current system and a quarter (26 per cent) want the Levy to turn into a training levy.


/ FACTORYEQUIPMENT


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