£9.7m investment in robots at Rotherham's “engineering masterpiece”

AESSEAL has placed orders with a total value of £9.7 million for 32 robots that will be installed at its Factory for the Future, with the investment expected to increase productivity by automating mundane processes.

Work began on the development at AESSEAL's Mill Close site earlier this year, and the Factory of the Future is already part-occupied.Engineering director Stephen Shaw said: “This business has always invested extremely heavily in technology.

“The surprising thing is that the more we have invested in productivity, the more people the company has employed.

“It is just that the jobs that people do become less repetitive and therefore less boring, so that human beings can do more of the things no robot will ever be able to do.”Most of the investment will be on six robotic machine tool cells – valued at £1.25 million each – able to produce parts without the need for human inspection.

The remainder is for 26 auto-store robots to automate the storage process and retrieval of engineering products.Group managing director Chris Rea said: “We have always invested in the future, but we have also always been prudent about only spending what we can afford.

“As we were unable to obtain meaningful financial support from regional agencies, the directors prudently decided to extend the project time-frame by five years.

“Although we would have preferred to do it faster, with this extended investment time-frame we know that we will continue to employ more people in higher quality positions.

“It will take a lot longer than we had originally planned, but our priority is to provide safe, secure and sustainable positions for all our current and future colleagues.”Project manager David Montero said the site is being built to the highest environmental standards, with features including solar panels and a kilometre-long 'tree walk' around the perimeter.

He added: “When complete, the factory is intended to be an architectural and mechanical and electrical masterpiece.”