The march of the industrial robots

Mike Wilson, Chairman, BARA, commented: "whilst overall UK robot sales remain relatively positive compared to previous years, the largest sector is still, by a long way, the automotive and automotive components industries. It is important that other sectors look to the car industry to see just how effective adopting automation has been.”

Other sector variances include electronics which is up by 73% and plastics which is up by 75%. A total of 1,793 industrial robots were sold in the UK during 2014 overall across all industries and, although down from 2,305 in 2013 and 2,427 in 2012, last year’s sales well up on all the years prior to 2012. Something of a pattern since 2010, the first two quarters were mainly responsible for the majority of the annual sales.

“Whilst we have seen a tremendous level of on-going interest in automation from the food sector, growth remains slow compared to other competing nations such as Germany and China. The UK’s short term profit culture, access to cheap labour from Eastern Europe and squeezed supplier margins from multiple retailers has not helped with the uptake in automation within the UK’s largest sector - food and drink,” added Grant Collier, Head of Marketing, BARA.

Automation and industrial robots in action can be seen at the free to attend annual PPMA Show, 29th September to 1st October in Birmingham.