UK industries Competes For A Higher Position In The Robot Race
A recent report by the International Federation Of Robotics, the World’s Top Ten automated countries, measures Robot density. This is the Number of operational Industrial Robots relative to the numbers of workers.
Certain Countries fall into the top ten and these include Asia, Singapore, Luxemburg, Germany and Belgium, with the US coming in Ninth. The UK does not appear in the top ten and nor does it make the top 20 but we do have reasons to be more optimistic that the UK could become a contender in the Robot Automation race.
More recently the government and Industry is starting to recognize that Robot Automation clearly produces improved productivity. In certain industries such as the food and beverage industries that are already well automated, we can see that they are able to adapt their operations to suit demands.
In a survey carried out in 2021, ABB discovered that 78 per cent of UK businesses really struggle to retrain and recruit staff especially for repetitive tasks and challenging roles. It is estimated that robots have the potential to increase UK manufacturing GVA by 21 per cent in less than a decade.
The UK is more than aware that it needs to build back better in order to redress the balance and help industry build back better especially since Brexit and Covid-19 but what can be done and how can we do it.
The costs of Robot Automation are quite steady wherever in the world it is being deployed but many manufacturers continue to priorities short term return on investment from new assets rather than a more holistic view.
Encouragingly there has been a shift in the way UK manufacturers view and are considering Robot automation. This change of mentality is partly as a result of efforts by companies such as ABB who can demonstrate not just the productivity gains from digital assets but Robot flexibility, ease of use and versatility.
ABB’s recent Industry survey discovered that eight out of ten businesses plan to introduce and increase their use of Robots within the next decade with Covid-19 cited as the catalyst that is driving investment in Robot Automation.
