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Five digitalisation trends to drive the benefits of automation Down Under Industry throughout Australia and New Zealand can gain huge efficiency, quality and safety advantages from emerging trends in digitalisation and automation technology. In this article, Simon Pullinger, Lapp Asia Pacific, provides insight from the global technology leader LAPP Group on five trends providing signposts to the future.
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1 Trend towards intensified networking and miniaturisation Digitalisation is changing the connection technology environment in the sense that an increasing number of products and even individual components can and need to communicate. This means that an increasing volume of data has to be transmitted at increasingly fast speeds - something familiar in offices for years is now moving into the factories. Continuous increases in the performance of microchips is not only driving digitalisation but also - in conjunction with efforts to improve resource efficiency - is resulting in a move towards increasingly smaller and more compact products and devices. A smartphone now has the processing power of a 1990s super computer but has a fraction of the size, energy consumption and price. This is having a big impact on industrial connection technology.
Innovation needed What are businesses doing to stay competitive, remain manufacturing and providing jobs in New Zealand? Since the GFC, our manufacturers have gone through a particular tough set of circumstances: slow global demand for many products, and a period of considerable overvaluation of our currency - our manufacturers have had to become leaner and adjust business models to survive – relentless innovation. That is not going to change, and the industry is facing some structural challenges beyond our overvalued dollar. Lack of scale is one of them. In one sense smaller manufacturers are more nimble and able to change quickly, but innovation is a resource-hungry activity and SMEs often struggle to get things changed on top of dealing with every-day challenges.
Robots and other machines are becoming more compact and demanding an increasing number of data connections. Special cable designs and technical tricks, with the insulation for example, help to save space. As a result, we are seeing increasingly continued on Page 12 The age structure in our manufacturing leadership, combined with and sometimes insufficient succession planning, is another factor we cannot ignore. Having said all that, there remains the important factor in manufacturing of an ecosystem of capability and supply chains. While supply chains are more global than they have ever been, local supply chains remain vital to the success of manufacturing. This means that we need to maintain a solid base of diversified manufacturing capability capacity in New Zealand. Without that, it will be nearly impossible to grow other forms of advanced manufacturing and production in the future that we need to create well paid jobs and earn export income.
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-Dieter Adam, NZMEA
Inspiring Manufacturing and Innovation Excellence
1-3 May 2018
ASB Showgrounds, Auckland
www.emex.co.nz Interested in Exhibiting? Contact our Sales Manager Aad van der Poel
Aad@xpo.co.nz | 021 314 199
With a 40 year history in New Zealand, EMEX is the largest technology trade event for the manufacturing, engineering and electronic industries. Bringing 1000’s of industry professionals and innovators together: • To Showcase, Educate & Sell to the industry professionals • To see and touch the latest products and technology for the sector • To better understand regulatory change within the industry