High demand for grant

The British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) has reported that after the completion of the first year of the government funded Automating Manufacturing programme, 156 applications were received from UK manufacturers to March 31 exceeding the best estimations by more than 50%.

British manufacturers are urged to apply before the government money runs out.

Mike Wilson, chair of BARA, said: "We are delighted with the uptake from industry so far. The UK is one of the nations within Europe that has been slow to adopt the use of automation with a mere 25 robots per 10,000 employees as opposed to 127 per 10,000 employees in Germany. One of the keys to success in addressing the UK's budget deficit is increasing the export output from the UK and the way to do this is by making UK manufacturing as efficient as possible."