COMMENT
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Andrew Allcock, Editor
Mechanical thinking
Industry 4.0 is a much talked about, if not practised, topic. Its
importance was underlined by the publication of the governmentbacked
Made Smarter Review of 2017.
Now, in Machinery’s sphere of coverage, much of the Industry
4.0-connected technology is the hardware of metalcutting and
metalforming machine tools, one branch of advanced machinery.
‘Machinery’ was acknowledged as an element in the medium-to-high tech manufacturing
area within the Made Smarter Review, both its creators and users, but the report did
not, unsurprisingly, follow this down any particular vertical avenue in any detail. Instead,
in general terms it said: “Soon, manufacturers will no longer build machines that have
only mechanical functions – they will include intelligence as standard.” It is certainly
already true of many machine tools.
For a country in which the industrial revolution built up a head of steam first, from
around the mid-18th century to ~1820-40, and one that had a global hold in the
machine tool area just last century, perhaps a historic strength might still be there to be
drawn upon, allied to Industry 4.0? That’s what the authors of the ‘Future State
Workshop of UK Advanced Machinery Manufacturers report’, published in 2018, believe.
Our feature on p10 details the early stages in the creation of the Advanced
Machinery and Productivity Institute – the AMP Institute – which flows from that work.
This is not, it is strongly emphasised, a backward-looking exercise in nostalgia, but one
that seeks to help the UK conceive and build machines of the future at a time of
production process disruption. And we are talking all types of machines employed in the
production of a variety of goods/products, not only machine tools, for which this country
no longer holds sway across the globe, of course.
In the UK, there is no single body to which either creators or users of advanced
machinery can turn to aid them develop a next-generation unit for the production of the
high-tech products of tomorrow. There are, however, pockets of relevant mechanical
engineering, machinery and allied control/software knowledge and excellence still
spread around the UK on which to build, and bringing these pockets together via a
central access point will magnify the potential in a ‘greater than the sum of their parts’
manner, there can be no doubt. That is to be the AMP Institute’s role.
The belief is that the UK could build up an advanced machinery industry that would
match the size of Switzerland’s similar output, generating many thousands of jobs.
That, Machinery feels, seems a realistic ambition, not one likely to drown in its own
hyperbole. And building on and magnifying existing strengths would seem to be an
eminently sensible use of the very modest government funding that will be required
initially to bring the AMP Institute to life. Machinery is very much behind this initiative. ■
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www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | October 2020 7
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