Automation is a fast growing industry. Innovations, whether through robotics or artificial intelligence, are here to stay, and continue to transform the global economy.

By embracing robotics, businesses can up-skill their current workforce and increase productivity. A study looking at potential growth in productivity and employment, undertaken by the Copenhagen Business School ‘Automation, labor productivity and employment - a cross country comparison’ found that UK productivity would increase by 22.3% if it was as automated as the most automated country of those surveyed (EU and Japan). This backed up by a recent report from Barclays Bank – 'Future Proofing UK Manufacturing', which illustrates that the use of robots can create a more efficient, highly skilled and flexible workforce in the long term.

The Barclays report also indicates that the increased productivity through robotic automation can lead to a growth in jobs. It suggests that even an increase of £1.24bn in automation investment could raise the overall value of the manufacturing sector by £60.5bn, leading to an estimated 33,000 manufacturing jobs by 2020 and 73,000 jobs by 2025. Using robotics can make it cost effective for a company to remain in the UK.

It is vital that the UK overcomes its tentative approach to robotics, in order to address the productivity crisis in the manufacturing sector and not lose out to our global competitors. We have a choice going forward: we can either make people work harder and longer or we can apply the latest technologies that enable them to work smarter.

The productivity of the UK manufacturing sector has grown by only 0.6 per cent each year between 2010 and 2015, whereas France has seen a growth of two per cent and the US an impressive nine per cent. It is ABB’s view that the answer to the productivity puzzle is simple – better automation.

The UK’s car makers, which have invested heavily in robotic technology, have seen their productivity grow well beyond the UK average and are now producing 11.5 vehicles per employee per year, compared to 9.3 in 2009.

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) measures robot density, which is the number of robots per 10,000 employees. Excluding the automotive industry, the UK has 31 robots per 10,000 employees, compared with countries like Germany which have 161 robots per 10,000 employees. The growing UK automotive industry, by comparison, uses 734 robots per 10,000 employees. This indicates that outside of the automotive sector at least, the UK is still a long way behind most of our major industrial competitors.

In order to ensure that the UK has the workforce and the skills to handle the automated technologies of the future, it is critical that more is done to produce highly skilled engineers across the board. ABB urges the Government to support the practical teaching of core manufacturing and engineering skills in universities, schools and further education colleges. In addition, we believe the Government should work with the industry to finance educational robotics packages which would inspire and educate the engineers of the future.

The Government has defined priority funding for eight technology areas which it believes will propel the UK to future growth: big data; space; robotics and autonomous systems; synthetic biology; regenerative medicine; agri-science; advanced materials and energy. Specifically, ABB welcomes the drive from the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Special Interest Group (RAS-SIG) to boost the robotics and autonomous systems sector in the UK and the £400 million investment in innovation by 2025. This investment will see an upswing in areas like collaborative robot technology as well as more advanced medical robots.

RAS-SIG has done a great deal of work with universities in identifying the technologies of the future and invested heavily in research and development. However, by concentrating on advanced manufacturing, the group has received little input from industrial robotics and UK manufacturing businesses. As such, the Group has had very little impact on productivity. As highlighted above, excluding the automotive sector, growth in automation across UK industry has been small. Sluggish growth indicates that the Annual Investment Allowance (currently £200,000) has not provided the stimulus to SMEs, mid-market or large companies. In order to exploit the benefits that robotics can bring to present day manufacturing, ABB would welcome more Government support through assisted assessment programmes and training programmes (in the use of robotics within a lean structure and training in skills to use robotics).

ABB welcomes the Government’s commitment to invest in emerging technologies. These technologies are vital in order to drive UK competitiveness; supporting jobs and growth in the sector.

The establishment of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult has fostered advanced practices in the UK and helped smaller businesses gain access to advanced equipment they might otherwise not be able to afford.

We were also pleased that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Intelligent Automation recently received government funding of almost £5 million. ABB believes that the creation of an Intelligent Automation Centre is a significant step forward and recognises the importance of automation for the future success of UK manufacturing. Initial signs are positive, but we need to ensure easier access for SMEs, so that support is given to the companies that cannot necessarily afford, but may benefit the most from robotics.

A number of SMEs within the manufacturing industry believe that robots are not appropriate for them. They have a perception that they are expensive, difficult to use and don’t offer the skills they require. However, none of that is true, which is why we need Government support in convincing them that this is the case. We need to get businesses to focus their energy on robotics again, so that they can understand the benefits of autonomous technology and how it could improve their productivity.

We believe that ABB’s YuMi robot, the first truly collaborative robot, which has been designed to work alongside people will assist SMEs with making this transition. With its two precise hands, the robot can be easily trained to do almost anything from packaging toys and building kits to assembling electronic devices. As a collaborative robot, YuMi allows businesses to decide with more flexibly where to use robots and where to use people. The robot can undertake the repetitious jobs while its human co-workers focus on the more intricate operations. It also opens up robotics to businesses that haven’t utilised them in the past; that need flexibility; and that need to integrate automation more effectively than was the case previously.

This robot is now for sale in the UK, with the first being sold to Sony UK Tech Centre, based in Pencoed, Wales, who introduced the robot into their manual assembly lines. Sony believe the YuMi robot will maximise production output with minimum operational footprint working with or alongside human co-workers, requiring no safety barriers or cages around the robot. Sony are already in discussions with ABB regarding the potential of more YuMi robots at Pencoed.

ABB’s experience has found that introducing robotics to the production line delivers significant social benefits, through increased productivity and efficiency for manufacturing businesses (thereby reducing operating costs and improving return on capital), as well as improving product quality and consistency.

A recent study by the IFR found that as well as increasing industry competiveness, the growth in robotics technologies will create more than two million jobs in the next eight years. Importantly, using robotics can make it as cost effective for a company to remain in the UK as to outsource to a lower cost country in Asia or Europe. It may also allow some companies to reshore operations that had previously been outsourced. It also provides the opportunity for innovation and up-skilling within a company as well as improving worker safety.

The UK is lagging behind the rest of the world, we need to catch up to secure jobs for the future.