Do we carry on regardless? What is the real face of Industry 4.0 investment, asks Subcon event director Gordon Kirk.
There is a wealth of new terminology facing UK manufacturers and engineering-based businesses as they seek to capitalise on improved market conditions and invest in new technology for growth. ‘Industry 4.0’, the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, ‘cyber-physical systems’, ‘digitalisation vs. digitisation’, the list goes on.
Often driven by technology vendors looking to situate their new offering into a competitive market place, these terms can confuse as much as clarify. And typically, when presented with such beguiling new language, the response of UK manufacturers has been to carry on regardless, eschewing the investment until circumstances force their hand.
Often, this is seen as UK businesses simply burying their head in the sand, but our research has shed new light on the actual activity of UK engineers and manufacturers, suggesting that they may have been playing a smarter game all along.
Deploying new tools
For example, Subcon research has shown that more than half or UK manufacturers / engineering businesses still don’t know what Industry 4.0 is. However, the same research shows that the specific technologies that underpin an Industry 4.0 strategy – such as simulation, automation, robotics and 3D printing - dominate manufacturing investment. Furthermore this is as applicable over the last year as it is for the coming 12 months.
The research also showed that this investment is being driven by the competitive issues of new product development and improving design and production processes.
This suggests that UK manufacturing and engineering businesses have bided their time in the face of a concerted marketing effort and have now begun embracing specific technologies to increase their own competitive position.
Considering that Industry 4.0 really only came into being around 2011, and that these investments are typically quite expensive, this delay could easily be seen and applauded as very pragmatic.
Indeed, the image of UK manufacturers and engineering companies being reactionary and “stuck in the mud” in the face of new technology is being completely destroyed.
For example, nearly a third of the respondents to our survey were investing to drive new services, as opposed to new products or process improvements. This is almost a tipping point for the concept of “servitisation”.
And across all these new technologies, it is the lack of access to skills and finance that frustrates efforts to invest, not a desire to keep on doing things the same way.
This year at Subcon we will have a wealth of next generation manufacturing and engineering technologies that can help deliver new products, processes and services. This year we have a 36-session conference programme based over two theatres and Industry 4.0 and the development of digital manufacturing technologies forms a key part of the subject matter. It will be most interesting to hear the voice of the UK manufacturing, engineering and subcontracting communities.
Subcon takes place 5-7 June at NEC, Birmingham.
Visitors can register for a free pass at www.subconshow.co.uk and passes to Subcon give visitors access to Automechanika free of charge.