INDUSTRY News FROM ADOPTION TO EXECUTION
Rockwell Automation has announced the UK findings of its 11th annual ‘State of Smart Manufacturing Report’. The new global report shows the United Kingdom entering a more disciplined phase of digital transformation, where success is defined by execution, resilience and workforce capability rather than technology adoption alone The study, based on feedback from more than 1,500 manufacturing leaders globally, highlights a clear shift in how UK manufacturers are approaching digital transformation. With 87% of organisations now recognising it as essential and allocating an average of 27% of operating budgets to industrial technology, the UK has moved beyond early-stage adoption and into a phase where digital investment must translate into operational performance. Phil Hadfield, UK managing director, Rockwell Automation, said: “The challenge is no longer access to technology, but the ability to embed it into production environments in a way that improves performance, resilience and competitiveness.” Artificial intelligence sits at the centre of this transition. Nearly half of manufacturers have already invested in AI, and adoption of generative AI is now widespread. The focus, however, is shifting away from experimentation toward practical use cases that deliver measurable value. Cybersecurity has emerged as the leading AI application, followed closely by quality control and process optimisation, reflecting a growing emphasis on protecting and stabilising increasingly complex production environments. This growing reliance on connected technologies is also
reshaping risk. Half of UK manufacturers report experiencing at least one cyberattack in the past year, despite strong levels of investment in cybersecurity. The implication is clear: as digital maturity increases, so too does exposure. At the same time, workforce dynamics are becoming a defining factor in how quickly digital transformation can progress. Rising labour costs now affect 40% of manufacturers, while change management challenges have increased significantly year-on-year. Rather than reducing headcount, organisations are focusing on re-skilling and workforce development, with more than a third of employees now engaged in training programmes designed to support digital roles. This shift is closely linked to the growing importance of AI capability. The June issue of Automation features a more in-depth look at the report and its findings.
www.rockwellautomation.com/en-gb
ABB COLUMN
ACCURATE MODELLING CAN BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN ROBOT SIMULATIONS AND THE FACTORY FLOOR
By allowing engineers to design and test robotic systems in a virtual environment before heading to the factory floor, simulation tools have long been helping companies reduce risk, speed up commissioning and optimise performance. Yet traditional simulation tools can struggle to bridge the gap between virtual behaviour and real-world performance. For AI-enabled automation, that can be a problem. For decades, conventional robot simulation has been mainly concerned with geometry and motion planning. That’s fine for many traditional automation tasks but it can fail to capture the nuances of autonomous robots that must be able to perceive, reason and interact with their surroundings without external intervention. The resulting ‘sim-to-real gap’ can lead to inefficiencies, delays and higher costs when transitioning robots from a virtual environment to face the practical challenges of the factory floor, where conditions are often less-than-ideal. Some obstacles relate to perception, with poor lighting or noisy
environments leaving robots unable to navigate their surroundings safely and reliably. Sometimes it’s a matter of motion control, with many traditional simulation tools approximating robot motion rather than applying the same control logic as the physical robot. The good news is that a new development within our RobotStudio platform now enables simulations to mirror real-world performance with a fidelity that enables autonomous systems to be designed and fully validated in a virtual environment before deployment. The arrival of RobotStudio HyperReality delivers a step-change in accuracy to generate a true digital twin of each application. This level of accuracy means that product design, perception modelling, AI training and robot execution can all be developed simultaneously. The power behind ABB’s photorealistic simulations is provided by the NVIDIA Omniverse 3D development open platform, which augments RobotStudio’s capabilities to reproduce real manufacturing conditions within the model. More accurate modelling in turn delivers faster commissioning and improved collaboration across teams. By bringing unprecedented realism to virtual testing and validation, accurate modelling is helping close the gap between simulation and reality. By being able to train, test and optimise autonomous systems against the practical challenges they will face on the factory floor, users can reduce risk and get up and running faster. The ability to bridge the sim-to-real gap will be essential to building flexible, future-ready manufacturing operations.
Alan Conn, MD, ABB Robotics UK & Ireland
www.abb.com/robotics
automationmagazine.co.uk
Automation | May 2026
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