Produsen cuaca turbulen 2017, dengan Brexit ketidakpastian dan pertanyaan sekitar produktivitas hanya dua tantangan dilemparkan kepada mereka.

Sekarang, dengan pergantian tahun baru mereka cari ke depan dengan tingkat optimisme diukur, berkat tidak ada bagian kecil untuk peluncuran Strategi Industri pemerintah whitepaper ditambah dengan perkiraan ekonomi yang positif untuk Amerika Serikat, Eropa dan Asia.

Ian Shott CBE, ketua Inggris terkemuka kimia dan biokimia perusahaan teknik desain BPE, tampak depan untuk melihat apa 2018 telah di toko untuk industri manufaktur dan proses.

Brexit untuk kickstart reindustrialisation

Selama beberapa dekade kita sudah bergantung pada Eropa untuk impor barang tertentu. Dengan Brexit di cakrawala, menteri sedang melihat bagaimana kita bisa membuat perubahan dan mulai untuk menggantikan bahwa dengan manufaktur lokal di tanah UK. Dari percakapan saya sudah memiliki dengan menteri itu jelas mereka melihat Brexit sebagai kesempatan emas untuk merangsang apa yang kita lakukan di sini di Inggris dan mereka sangat termotivasi untuk mendukung reindustrialisation negara didukung oleh Strategi Industri dan meningkatkan pendanaan Pemerintah untuk Sains dan Inovasi.

Bisnis kedua sisi saluran untuk mendorong kesepakatan yang adil

Before Christmas the CIA (Chemical Industries Association) made a joint statement with its European counterparts about what they expected from Brexit. Their expectations were identical. With the private sector united on both sides of the water, the UK government – and Brussels – will come under pressure to ensure any new regulations are fair, particularly those relating to movement of goods.

More high value product manufacturers to embrace continuous processing

Continuous processing will become even more prevalent in 2018, as increasing numbers of small volume high-value manufacturers cotton on to the efficiency benefits it brings.

The pharmaceutical sector is already coming on-board, spurred on by a need to maintain profitability amidst the government’s increasing regulatory and pricing pressures on the industry. The patent cliff of the last decade was the danger warning pharmaceutical manufacturers needed to reassess their processes and look at how they could make them more efficient.

Now they’re doing that by switching their small-scale production from batch to continuous. At BPE we’ve seen a marked increase in continuous processing projects in the last few years and this will continue drive opportunity going forward.

Industry 4.0, the productivity hero

The vast majority of economists expect productivity growth to remain sluggish in the UK in 2018, partly because uncertainty about the UK's future outside the EU is expected to weigh on investment spending.

However, we think Industry 4.0 will play a significant role in boosting productivity over the next 12 months. We’re working with some big name companies to design new plants and facilities and they’re really embracing automation and a move towards a ‘smart factory’. The environment is very receptive to using technology to solve efficiency issues.

At BPE we’re using computer aided systems to design more productive plants for our customers and make our own operations more efficient too.

Government investment in the process industries

The government is desperate to catch up with countries like Germany when it comes to productivity. As a result, it’s investing heavily in innovation that will boost productivity in the important manufacturing sector.

For the first time in decades, we have a clear industrial strategy that’s underpinned by real investment. Westminster is injecting ￡4.7bn into innovation and research this term and promising to add ￡2bn more per year thereafter.

Businesses will feel this on the ground as industrial challenge funds start to open up. Arcinova, a Contract Research and Development Organisation of which I am managing director, has just won a grant of more than ￡1m to develop small-scale modular continuous processing for drug manufacturing.

We’re expecting there to be more where this came from. An Industry 4.0 fund is definitely in the pipeline and we’re predicting an industrial challenge fund for biotechnology soon, which BPE could take advantage of in helping its clients to develop new processes.

Rewriting the rulebook for Hazop

As an industry we’ve been using the same approach for Hazop studies for the last four decades. When you think about the evolution that’s taken place over that time, particularly in terms of technology, it’s clear we need to reassess our approach to ensure it’s fit for purpose.

Mike Brown, BPE’s managing director, has spent the last 12 months doing exactly that and we plan to unveil a new and much more productive approach in early 2018.

Chemicals and pharmaceutical sector set for growth

There was strong growth in 2017 and we’re expecting this to continue into the coming year. There will be Brexit uncertainty but capital investment), research and development expenditure and jobs are also set to continue to grow over the next year according to research from the Chemicals Industries Association.