The task of attracting more young people with critical skills to manufacturing, while dispelling the industry’s unwarranted reputation for belching smokestacks and dilapidated mills, is a monumental one that requires a concerted effort by parents, educational bodies, the UK government, and manufacturing firms alike.
Ensuring that manufacturers are investing in the skills they need to drive their businesses forward is not only critical for their own survival, but for that of the entire UK industry.
UK manufacturing continues to face significant change in automation and digitalisation, attitudes towards its emissions output and preparing its workforce for the future, while being beset by ever-shifting political challenges as the UK prepares to the the European Union.
The UK is in the top tier of the global aerospace industry, a position it owes in part to the expertise of smaller firms in the supply chain, such as Coventry’s Arrowsmith Engineering. Maddy White reports.
Siemens UK has been in the vanguard of industry’s drive for a meaningful governmental
industrial strategy and the adoption of digital technologies in manufacturing.
Nick Peters visited the Siemens factory in Congleton, Cheshire, to discover
just how well Siemens is managing its own digital revolution.
Industry commentators believe that, over time, every machine on every factory floor will have its own digital twin. Some have even been so brazen as to suggest that at least half of large industrial companies will adopt this self-learning technology by 2021.
