AUTOMATION JUNE 2019
26
herdysleep
founder Darren
Marcangelo
(below) says
his sta have
reacted well
to increased
automation
wool for the interior, to
sewing the fi nished product
together – is done by hand.
For Marcangelo, balancing
skilled labour with high-rate
automation is the secret to the
company’s success. “We could
automate the entire process,
but it’s very expensive, would
take up a lot of space in the
factory and wouldn’t guarantee
any discernible improvement
in quality,” he says.
Protecting skills
Many manufacturers are
concerned that an increase
in automation will lead to
irreversible job losses. This
mentality is a large reason
behind that fact that the
UK lags behind most other
industrial nations when it
comes to the proliferation
of robotics. According to the
World Robotics Report 2019,
the UK ranks 22nd globally for
robot density, with 85 industrial
robots per 10,000 workers (see
p6). This compares to 200 in
the USA, 322 in Germany and
710 in South Korea.
However, Marcangelo is also keen to stress
that companies like herdysleep are vital to
maintaining a dying breed of skills. He points to
the decline of the UK’s furniture-making industry
as an example. “In High Wycombe, for instance,
there used to be a furniture company on pretty
much every street corner,” he says. “They initially
relocated to places like the Midlands and South
Wales, where labour and overheads were cheaper.
Subsequently, they moved to Eastern Europe and
out to the Far East. A lot of the skilled workers
back here found work in other sectors, and
gradually all the woodworking and upholstery
skills they had were lost. Now, some of the
furniture companies are coming back to the
UK and are fi nding it hard to source people
with the right skills.”
herdysleep faces a similar problem: the
company’s factory is near Leeds, where there is a
strong worker base. However, most of these are
unskilled, requiring signifi cant time and fi nancial
outlay from the company to get them to the
required level. An additional challenge comes with
retention: in a competitive market, herdysleep’s
training methods are at the top-end. As a result,
competitors are often keen to swoop in and lure
their best staff away with the off er of more money.
Despite this, Marcangelo is adamant that the
company’s approach is the right one. “We always
need to be making specialist, artisan products,
be they a Morgan car, a hand-crafted table – or
a mattress. If we totally automated everything,
generations of skills will be lost,” he says.
Both Denby Pottery and herdysleep show how
balancing traditional skills with automation can
benefi t even the most traditional of industries.
Finding that balance could, argues Martin
Walder, VP of industry at Schneider
Electric, drag UK productivity out of the
doldrums in which it currently fi nds itself.
“Britain’s productivity levels have led to
a lot of head-scratching in boardrooms
across the country,” he says. “For the UK
to remain competitive with the rest of
the world, manufacturers not only need
to increase creativity and be open to
innovation, they also need to understand
the importance of mixing the old with
the new.”
The reality is, though, that
while job losses will occur
(see box, previous page), the
majority of fi rms will up-skill
their workers to move into
newly created roles. “Our
staff have reacted well to the
automation we’ve introduced,
and recognise that it’s
benefi cial to their jobs,” says
Marcangelo. “As we improve
our machines, they become
more reliable and the team
can guarantee more output.
Obviously as the machines
get faster and more effi cient,
there’s an argument that we
won’t need as many people as
we currently do. However, the
business is growing in such
a way that we are able to
utilise those people in
helping the company
develop, not just have
them making springs on
the shopfl oor. Nobody is
seeing automation as a
threat to their job, just as
a sign that the business
is evolving in such a
way that their jobs will
become easier.”
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