| Manufacturing
in the UK
In
the Early 80's every industry was examining it's potential for robot
applications. My job as an application engineer working for Unimation,
would involve visiting companies' looking at all kinds of diverse
jobs, in any industry.
- Satellite
panel testing (ultrasonic testing for delamination)
- Cylinder
Head Assembly
- Chocolate
box filling (vision and orientation)
- Anus
drilling of pigs carcases
- Ship
building (Welding on board)
- Wing
skin drilling (Aerospace)
- Wafer
handling for Semicon (Clean Room)
- Vehicle
body paint inspection
- Cement
bagging
- Munitions
Production
- Radiation
hardened robot (glove box decommissioning)
- Brick
palletising
- Handling
Blood products (Sterile Environment)
- Glass
engraving
- Shell
Loading for Fighting Vehicles
This
is apart from the obvious candidates like Spot Welding lines, Arc
Welding, Machine Loading, Fettling, Forging, Die Casting, Investment
Casting.
Given
the initial stampede to embrace the technology, roll out in the
UK has been disappointing to say the least. How can it be that a
country so closely involved with the inception of the robot manufacturing
industry can be so backward in its approach progress.
Of
approximately 1 million robots in the world, around half a million
of them are in Japan. The Japanese have been so successful in their
implementation of robots that they even export plants and jobs to
expand manufacturing. We have 20,000 robots in the UK and the manufacturing
base has contracted over the past 2 decades.
The
problem may well lie with the financial institutions who are well
known in the UK for taking the short view. I remember our financial
Director saying he would rather put the money in the bank than finance
systems work. I think he left with a healthy balance sheet when
he moved on after a couple of years, but we didn't have much of
a systems capability left.
Finance
may bring a return for a small proportion of the population with
the funds to speculate but manufacturing generates wealth and jobs
and community for the country.
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