While the world put itself on hold for much of the past two years, I found myself busier than ever – collaborating with various global companies to urgently accelerate their automation strategies. Now, with plenty of interested parties keen to play catch up, I’m often asked for my take on the state of the nation in automation. My answer? It’s exciting times, but there are plenty more challenges to face.
Let me explain. In recent years when we talked about automation in industry, the conversations were predominantly focused on manufacturing, specifically in high-volume lines in the automotive industry. That world is history. Industry is all-in on automation as businesses scramble to realise new use cases from retail, logistics, wholesale and warehousing to pharma, medical devices and the broader life sciences arena.
The latter is a particularly interesting one. Automation in areas such as surgical robotics has been a big focus for a while of course, but...