JUNE 2019 AUTOMATION
features of the HMIs alert the
plant operators and enable them
to quickly detect the cause and
solve it. This made it possible
to slash downtime as well as
quickly identify, investigate and
plan any maintenance tasks.
“The accuracy of the
calculations on clay properties
has improved, also increasing
the quality of the clay and its
consistency. More impressively,
the clay manufacturing time has
halved, increasing our effi ciency
and productivity.”
Combining tradition
and the future
Denby Pottery is not the only
traditional manufacturer to have
reaped the rewards that come
from automation. Over the
border in Yorkshire, herdysleep
manufactures top-of-the-range
mattresses. The company,
which has been in operation for
just over two years, employs 16
people at its factory in Leeds.
The majority of components
used in the mattress, including
the wool, springs and panels,
are made in-house. The springs
are where herdysleep has
automated to its advantage.
“We’ve created the world’s
fastest pocket spring-making
machine,” explains herdysleep
co-founder, Darren Marcangelo.
“We can make around 600
springs per minute; our nearest
competitor is around 200-300
springs. That rate of production
means we can get our effi ciency
up while keeping costs down.”
This makes a real diff erence:
with about 4,000 springs in
each king-sized mattress, it
pays to be as fast as possible.
“We have fully automated
the spring-making process,”
continues Marcangelo. “One
operator can work across two
or three machines, stacking
product as it comes out,
making it both a more effi cient
and cost-eff ective proposition.”
However, herdysleep also
recognises the importance of
combining technology with
craftsmanship. The actual
assembly of the mattress –
from stacking the layers of
Denby Pottery
has improved
its maintenance
thanks to
automation
Automation will help create
‘better’ jobs, says Make UK
A third of UK manufacturers expect some lowskilled
jobs to be lost over the next fi ve years
as a result of Artifi cial Intelligence and digital
technologies, according to research by Make UK.
However, over half of companies (54%) say they
will upskill these lower skilled workers to take
the jobs that this innovation creates.
More than two-thirds of manufacturers plan
to spend some of their training budget over the
next 12 months on technical engineering skills.
Some of this will go on providing apprenticeships,
which almost eight in ten employers currently
o er, but the rest will be aimed at those existing
employees who need to continuously up-skill for
manufacturers to take best advantage of 4IR and
the income boost it can bring.
However, a quarter of companies surveyed
by Make UK said that they will look for external
support to help lower-skilled employees whose
jobs are going to be displaced by automation to
seek employment elsewhere.
Verity Davidge, Make UK’s head of education
and skills policy (below), explains that this is where
the government’s new National Retraining Scheme
will come into play – with the caveat that there
must be some adjustment to the current trial
specifi cations to make it properly e ective for
those workers who need that help.
She says: “Currently the scheme is being aimed
at those employees whose jobs are at risk of
being displaced as a result of AI and digitisation
within their companies. But it fails to look at the
fact that most companies want to retain their
workers by up-skilling them to fi ll new jobs digital
technologies will create or place these employees
in other parts of the business. This is the missing
link in funding support and provision which the
government’s Scheme could help to fi x. The cost
of retraining and up-skilling a manufacturer can be
high, and the National
Retraining Scheme,
when it is properly rolled
out across the country,
needs to be more widely
available including those
employers who wish
to up-skill their current
workers as well as for
those employees who
do fi nd themselves in a
position where they are
looking for alternative
employment.”
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