Have you started your net zero journey?

IF YOU haven’t already realised, it is becoming increasingly clear that if global warming is to be kept to a point that avoids catastrophic events, drastic and immediate action needs to be taken across all sectors.

...and along comes the next challenge

WELL, they say things come in threes and with the pandemic, Brexit and now war in Europe, we certainly seem to have the holy trinity of all challenges, not just for the industrial sector, but for society at a whole.

Automation & sustainability go hand in hand

George Thompson, chairman of the British Automation and Robotics Association (BARA), looks at how automation can bring key benefits in the drive for sustainability

CDA celebrates 10 years

This year Controls, Drives & Automation celebrates its 10th Anniversary. They say that time flies when you’re having fun, and I think that this must be true as it certainly doesn’t feel as if ten years have passed since I was brought on board to edit the first issue!

There's more to automation than robots

In the first of his new regular columns for Controls, Drives & Automation, the recently appointed chairman of the British Automation and Robotics Association (BARA), George Thompson looks at industrial automation beyond robots, and the importance of integrator knowledge

UK industrial robot sales on the up

Emersed in the world of Controls, Drives & Automation as I am, where I get to see a huge range of positive stories about the latest automation technologies and applications, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the UK is not actually a particularly ‘automated’ nation, at least in comparison with many other developed countries.

3D printing motors on

3D printing - also referred to as additive manufacturing - is not new. Indeed, it has been used been used for rapid prototyping in, for example, the automotive and aerospace, sectors and for tooling for upwards for upwards of 30 years. Then along came Industry 4.0, and additive manufacturing was identified by some as having the potential to transform the manufacturing process itself.

Industry FOMO has to be a good thing, right?

A recent survey of 300 managers, directors and higher-level executives from the industrial manufacturing community across the UK, USA, France and Germany by Ubisense has found that amongst those surveyed, almost half (46%) feel they are being left behind when they see industry peers roll out Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, despite more uncertainty of the value, benefits and role of the internet of things in their assembly processes compared to 2020.

We have the technology...

THIS WEEK, a report from the  International Energy Agency has concluded that if the world hopes to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century, nearly half the cuts will have to come from technologies currently only in the demonstration or prototype phase or not yet commercially available.

Reasons to be cheerful

Brexit. The global pandemic. The UK's perennial productivity crisis. These issues are not necessarily going to be high on anyone's list of reasons to be cheerful - unless you are Mike Wilson, that is. Ever one to be optimistic, at a recent industry event (online, of course), the Chairman of the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) turned these particular challenges on their head, viewing them instead as opportunities in relation to automation.