Flexible production: helping UK manufacturers adapt to a changing market
Author : By Daniel Rossek, Regional Marketing Manager, Omron UK
23 January 2020
Manufacturers in the UK face an increasingly dynamic consumer market combined with shorter product life cycles. To ensure that brands can keep up with the changing trends, manufacturers need to implement new flexible and agile production methods.
Incorporating the latest IoT technology along with automation and robotics will ensure that flexible manufacturing is also commercially viable.
To meet changes in demand, production processes can be divided into individual cells that can be easily rearranged and connected with collaborative and mobile robots. This is a step towards the flexible factory of the future that will help safeguard a competitive manufacturing industry in the UK.
Keeping up with changing consumer demands
According to a survey carried out by YouGov for Make UK, the manufacturers’ organisation, 70% of people agree that the UK cannot tackle future problems without a strong manufacturing sector. Manufacturing is seen as important to securing our place in the global economy, as well as creating employment opportunities for future generations. What is the impact of changing consumer trends to the manufacturing industry, and how can this important sector maintain its strength?
Mass production is a stable part of our industrial landscape. It lends itself to higher efficiency, higher productivity and consistency. However, where manufacturers benefit from these elements, they lose out in manufacturing agility. UK manufacturers need more flexible and agile production methods to ensure brands can respond rapidly to changing consumer needs.
Where trends, buying habits and products previously had long cycles, consumers today are far more connected and informed, resulting in rapidly changing trends. They require more personalised products to meet their unique needs, whilst expecting easy and fast access to these products.
Media also plays a big part in changing trends. A good example is the stir generated around single-use plastics, amplified by mainstream media. This kickstarted an enhanced awareness among consumers, with many companies acting quickly in fear of consumer pressure and brand degradation, needing to adjust their production and distribution processes.
Smart automation facilitates smart production
One solution to meet changing consumer demands is to move to a more artisanal method of manufacturing, but this rarely lends itself to mainstream and commercially viable operation. Manufacturers need to identify more flexible methods of manufacturing to ensure they can re-use, re-configure and re-apply production solutions to new product developments.
Smart automation plays a key role in achieving these goals, incorporating the latest IoT technology along with automation and robotics to make flexible manufacturing not only a reality but also commercially sustainable. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enables more agile production processes, where manufacturers can respond more quickly to changing consumer demands. One vision for the endpoint of the IIoT is a batch size of one, where a production line can change after every product to tailor to each individual customer’s needs.
More flexibility? The role of collaborative and mobile robots
Manufacturers can begin to add flexibility into their production processes by dividing a traditional production line into individual cells, with process modules that can be easily rearranged if necessary, to meet changes in demand. Instead of using conveyors or humans to move materials between cells and to and from warehouses, manufactures can deploy mobile robots to connect individual modules. Furthermore, collaborative robot arms that can work safely alongside people without typical robot security measures, whilst being easily configurable by local engineering staff, are easy to implement, adding greater flexibility to operations.
Collaborative robots installed on mobile robots will become integral to innovative logistic solutions, enabling further innovation and competitiveness for manufacturers. These hybrid robots can provide complete sub-assemblies and semi-finished products for assembly stations, and finished products to be placed in stock or quality control stations. Manufacturers should consider integrating collaborative and mobile robots into flexible, constantly evolving production environments where the re-deployment of machines is needed.
Creating the factory of the future today
In the future, combining collaborative and mobile robots with artificial intelligence and vision systems can unlock even more exciting possibilities for industrial applications. Automation with smart devices, precision control, and robotics enables maximum flexibility in manufacturing. There is no need to build an entire new production line or plant to timely address changes in consumer demand and to increase product customisation. Thanks to the added flexibility and efficiency, production lines can meet the changing market needs and ensure that manufacturers stay competitive, maintaining a strong manufacturing industry in the UK.
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