Vision to succeed

The UK's manufacturing sector is facing probably its toughest ever set of challenges as the country's economy reels from the ongoing effects of the global economic slowdown.

On the one hand, there is the need to continue producing good-quality competitively priced products for domestic and overseas markets. On the other there is the need to trim costs further in order to boost competitiveness and retain profitability. This, however, is further complicated by fluctuations in commodity and energy prices.

Faced with conditions such as these, it is easy to be pessimistic. However, there has never been a better time for companies to start putting new systems into effect that they may not have previously considered, either because of perceived costliness or lack of time.

As a new technology already proven to deliver enhanced levels of cost efficiency, reliability and productivity in applications around the world, vision-guided robots could prove to be the answer to many existing industry needs. Vision-guided technology effectively allows 'blind' robots to see, opening up new production possibilities over and above the well-documented efficiencies associated with the deployment of robotic equipment.