JANUARY 2020 THE INTERVIEW
of kids. When we get primary
school kids in the FANUC
factory, they’ll happily make
things and play with things and
get the robots going. When they
get to secondary school, they
just need to pass exams and be
a number. And then they go into
technical colleges or universities
and try and put innovation back
in again. You can’t have it, take
it out, and then put it back in
again, we need to keep it the
whole way through.
We need to let kids learn,
not just be taught to a formula.
They still need to learn things
from getting results that they
weren’t expecting, not just
regurgitating a textbook. If
you get a four-year-old in here,
they’ll gladly pick it up and it’s
kind of intuitive, and they’ll do
it. By contrast, most of the 12 or
13-year-olds we see have been so
disengaged in the previous two
or three years that they don’t
want to do it. We’ve got to keep
everybody engaged.
MM: Do you think better
collaboration amongst
competitors is needed?
TB: If everyone helps the
market to grow, we all stand
to benefi t. I’d much rather
Tom Bouchier
wants the UK
to continue
making things
and investing in
the future
If somebody comes up with a new collaborative
robot, for example, the Germans would fi nd it
harder to get lots of demand because they’ve been
buying huge numbers for the previous 10 years.
We therefore do have some advantages that mean
we can pick automation up pretty quickly. People
are waking up to the fact that they have to invest:
I’m noticing a lot more British visitors coming to
trade shows like EMO in Germany to see what’s
around. If your equipment is 20 or 30 years old,
you don’t have to replace anything that owes you
any money now to get with the latest technology.
We can make some massive leaps if we choose to
invest – we’ve just got to have the faith to do it.
That’s often the main thing that’s lacking: faith.
MM: Could automation be the silver bullet
for all of manufacturing’s struggles?
TB: I go to businesses that talk about wanting
automation in their factory right now. Quite
often I have to tell them to stick to the traditional
methods they’ve got because their RoI through
automation will take multiple years. It might be
that they aren’t making enough product, or they’re
operating in a niche market. People still like things
that are made by hand, so why would you want to
automate that away?
All too often, if somebody is looking to
automate, they pick the most diffi cult thing in
the middle of the line thinking that’s the one
they should automate. In reality, they should be
looking for the biggest returns quickly. The little
bit that’s really complicated in the middle, leave
that to your people who can deal with complexity.
We need to bring people back to where they need
to be. Take collaborative robots, for example. If
they’re not the solution, don’t use them, use a
traditional robot. You don’t need to collaborate
just because it’s the new buzzword and everybody
wants a collaborative robot. Businesses need to
be a little bit more pragmatic in the solutions
that they’re looking for, not just pick something
because it’s the latest trend. It’s not the same as
getting the newest iPhone every 18 months or so.
Most robots were manufactured on an eight-year
replacement cycle, so why do you want a one-year
payback when you know you’re there for an eightyear
have a 30% share of a much
bigger market. We need to
work together to try and grow
the market; the appetite is
starting to come with British
manufacturers again. There
are a number of issues such
as Brexit that we’ve got to try
and resolve before people start
spending too much money, but
they will. Whatever happens,
we’re a country of 67 million
people and we’re not going to
survive as a service industry – so
we have to make things. Once
British industry knows what’s
happening, it will invest again.
Everybody I talk to knows
they’ve got to invest, it’s just the
timing of their investment that
they’re not sure of.
MM: are already fi ve years ahead
of us. How do we bridge
that gap and get back on a
level playing fi eld again?
We don’t have that many
TB: Countries like Germany
legacy systems in the UK that
we need to replace. We haven’t
been buying big numbers
for the last 10 years,
so whatever we
bought is
now older
technology.
year model?
MM: What do you think the next 10
years have in store for manufacturing?
TB: It’s hard to remember what the
manufacturing industry was like 10 years
ago. I don’t think I’ve got a good enough
imagination to know where we’re going
to be in 10 years’ time. It seems like things
like smartphones are just so embedded
in our life now, but ten years ago they were
only just starting out. Who knows where
we’ll be in 2030. It will be the kids
coming into the industry now
and in the coming years
who are going to be
the ones driving
it forward.
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