UK manufacturers are investing in new equipment, but scaling production across multiple sites can expose a less obvious problem: automation systems that have evolved independently. Here, Mark Richards, Sales Manager at Beckhoff UK, argues that establishing common automation standards can help manufacturers scale without reproducing the complexity of their existing systems.
BDO’s latest Economic Engine survey found that 87% of UK SME manufacturers are planning investments over the next two to five years, with more than a third intending to invest in advanced equipment and machinery. As production capacity expands, many businesses face a less visible challenge. New machinery is relatively straightforward to install, but building consistency across multiple facilities is often much harder.
A manufacturer may have spent years refining processes at one site, only to discover that another facility uses different control systems, programming standards or maintenance procedures. The situation becomes even more complex following acquisitions, where plants often arrive with their own preferred suppliers and established ways of working.
How automation becomes fragmented
Most organisations don’t plan to create a fragmented automation environment. It develops gradually. A production line is upgraded to solve a specific problem. A new machine arrives with its own control platform. An individual site adopts a solution that suits its immediate requirements. Over time, those decisions accumulate.
The effects of this are felt every day. Maintenance teams need expertise across several platforms. Spare parts inventories grow. Training becomes more demanding because operators moving between sites encounter different systems. Even relatively simple tasks, such as comparing production performance across facilities, can become difficult when information is collected in different ways.
These issues become more apparent when manufacturers try to replicate success. A packaging line that performs well in one factory should, in theory, be straightforward to reproduce elsewhere. In practice, engineering teams can find themselves adapting software, modifying communications protocols and overcoming compatibility issues that have little to do with the process itself.
That is why many manufacturers are beginning to view automation differently. Instead of treating each project as a standalone investment, they are establishing common standards that can be applied across the business.
Standardisation without uniformity
Standardisation does not mean forcing every factory to operate in exactly the same way. Production requirements will differ between sites, and manufacturers need enough flexibility to accommodate different machines, processes and products. The aim is instead to standardise the underlying architecture – from engineering practices and software libraries to communications and data structures – so that local variation sits on a common foundation.
For machine builders, this approach can simplify deployment. Reusable software libraries, common engineering practices and standard communication protocols reduce the amount of development work required when delivering similar systems to multiple sites. Meanwhile, end users benefit from greater consistency, which can make maintenance, operator training and future upgrades easier to manage.
The discussion extends beyond engineering efficiency. Manufacturers are under growing pressure to make better use of production data. This becomes particularly important as manufacturers try to compare performance across sites. Energy consumption, downtime, throughput and maintenance data are only useful at group level if different facilities are measuring and structuring that information in comparable ways.
A site may have excellent data, but its value is limited if it cannot be compared with information from elsewhere in the organisation. Standardisation creates the conditions that allow manufacturers to understand performance across multiple facilities rather than viewing each one in isolation.
Technology choices play an important role here. Open automation platforms allow manufacturers to establish common approaches without restricting flexibility at the site level. For example, a shared software environment can support different machine types, while common communication standards help equipment exchange information more effectively.
Building a common automation architecture
One approach is to establish a common control and software architecture across sites. Beckhoff, for example, advocates PC-based control combined with EtherCAT and its TwinCAT software environment, arguing that a common platform can provide consistency while allowing individual machines and facilities to remain modular.
Standardisation does, however, require manufacturers to make choices about where commonality is genuinely valuable. Attempting to impose a single architecture on every machine can create its own constraints, particularly where sites have specialist equipment or legacy systems that cannot easily be replaced. The challenge is therefore to standardise the interfaces, engineering principles and data structures that need to be consistent, while retaining flexibility where it adds operational value.
As manufacturers continue investing in new equipment and expanding production capacity, the conversation around automation is changing. The focus is no longer solely on the performance of an individual machine or production line. Increasingly, attention is turning to how systems work together across an entire organisation.
For manufacturers operating across multiple facilities, the question is therefore not whether every site should look the same. It is whether the systems underneath those sites can speak the same language. As investment in automation accelerates, companies that establish that common foundation may find it easier to replicate successful processes, move engineering expertise between sites and turn production data into something that can be acted on at group level.
Author biography:
Mark Richards is Sales manager at Beckhoff UK.
