We need to become more like Germany: a misguided national obsession with keeping old manufacturing equipment running as long as possible rather than investing in the latest technology is holding UK firms back and hampering productivity.
This was just one of the claims made at a recent roundtable event convened by The Engineer and BAE Systems to discuss the opportunities presented by digital manufacturing technologies and practical challenges of implementing these technologies.
Held at BAE’s impressive Samlesbury facility – home to its F-35 manufacturing and assembly operations and something of an exemplar of the digitally enabled factory – this debate brought together a mix of OEMS, Tier Ones, SMEs and manufacturing researchers to examine the benefits and challenges of adopting digital manufacturing technologies and to look at how UK industry might accelerate its digital transformation.
We asked our panellists to talk about their own adoption and development of technologies including cobots additive manufacturing to AR, to comment on the much-trumpeted productivity-enhancing benefits of these techniques and to consider the lessons they’ve learned that could make it easier for others to follow in their footsteps.
Until recently, it’s not been easy to answer these questions. While industry leaders and government-led panels have repeatedly made the high-level strategic case “digital manufacturing”, it has been difficult for the rest of the manufacturing sector to grasp the benefits.
But this is beginning to change. And as our discussion demonstrated, today there are numerous tangible examples of technologies that were at the fringes less than a decade ago now playing a key role in manufacturing operations across the industry.
As you’ll learn from the following series of articles based on this debate there are clearly some major challenges ahead: from the requirement to encourage greater cross-sector collaboration to a pressing need for entirely new skills. But encouragingly, there’s also a growing understanding of what industry is doing right and how it can rise to these challenges.
Click here to begin reading our Digital Manufacturing roundtable report
You can also find a full version of our report in The Engineer’s February issue
UK industry has suffered from the same issues for years: not investing in its people with training and apprenticeships, but rather taking skills from overseas (while all the time bemoaning the lack of home grown talent), a lack of investment in latest technology ((for fear it will undermine the use of cheap(er) labour)), a willingness to sell businesses to maximise pay packets of senior execs and dividends, a focus on dividends and short term profits instead of investing for the long term (too many are run by accountants rather than engineers?), an unwillingness on the part of CEOs to make difficult decisions for fear of shareholders bringing their well paid positions to a premature end. These and other issues have been repeated time and time again in comments in this magazine, yet nothing ever changes it seems …..
A comment; it sometimes seems difficult for shareholders to revolt and get rid of CEOs… ;-{{
An interesting comment came my way from the software engineers – to the effect that with all the outsourcing possibly the most effective would be to get much cheaper (and likely better) senior management from overseas (hence saving usurious salaries too!).
It might help to consider that outsourcing was regarded as a “no-brainer” – but time has shown that perhaps some of those proposing this had not thought it out (or perhaps it actually was a idea for no brains?) – and the consequences of foreign competition and lack of customer understanding of manufacturability.
Exactly, plus the drive to send everybody to university is raising expectations of those who go and then the eventual disillusionment when there is no job prospects for them when they leave full time education.
It is much worse than you think. Heavy Engineering has almost gone and manufacturing is continuing to decline apart from a few sectors. The old equipment is being sold to developing countries cheaply.
The reason is simple: Investment in property makes guaranteed returns and is safe. Industrial processes usually give poor returns on capital for high risk.
Even construction is proving very risky as construction companies have entered fields like waste-to-energy and lost millions.
Ask yourself “where would I invest my millions”?
I can remember a New Scientist report bemoaning the state of British manufacture and asking ” why won’t businesses invest? The year -1964. British management, except for a few honourable exceptions, has always been more interested in cutting costs, than looking to the future. Look at the way that so many businesses sent work abroad to the lowest wage economies in the 80s and 90s as an example.