BBC Midlands Today 22.07.2019 - Factory in a Box

Title: BBC Midlands Today 22.07.2019 - Factory in a Box

Duration: 2.17 mins

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[TEXT: Source BBC Midlands Today]

[News reader] A revolutionary factory in a box has been unveiled by the Coventry based Manufacturing Technology Centre. The factory is housed in a shipping container so it can be deployed anywhere and programmed to make anything and with superfast data transmission it can also be controlled from anywhere in the world- here's our business correspondent Peter  Plisner.

[Peter Plisner] It's a tight space but inside this shipping container there's afully automated factory containers like this are normally used to carry finished products around the world but this one will be making them instead.

[Dr Hannah Edmonds, Technical Specialist] A factory in a shipping container allows you to kind of deploy your manufacturing capacity so you can leave your factory instead of moving your product to where it needs to be.

[Peter Plisner] Here making pipe work for a lorry, the factory can be programmed to make components for a variety of different industries. It's been pioneered by Conventry's Manufacturing Technology Center, its Chief Executive says the Factory in a Box will have many benefits. 

[Clive Hickman, Chief Executive, Manufacturing Technology Centre] By having a factory that is fully automated, fully contained in a sealed, environment allows us to have a product that is high quality we improve the productivity and we can bring the cost down. 

[Peter Plisner] The factory in a box is a prime example of what's being termed industry 4.0 or the next Industrial Revolution. It's not just about the deployment of more robots or the use of new technology but also the gathering and analysis of vast amounts of data that means by streaming fast across the internet the factory can be controlled literally from anywhere in the world

[Ross Caddens, Director, Siemens] The internet and emerging technologies like 5G are allowing us to connect to this equipment in remote locations so we haven't been able to do this before we have the expertise and locations like here in the UK and they can drive these facilities in almost anywhere in the world. 

[Peter Plisner] Experts say the new factory is game-changing for the industry. 

[Professor Martin Freer, Director, Birmingham Energy Institute] What we're seeing here is acompletely new approach to manufacturing, it's opening up manufacturing to small companies who can now not just hand their product over to somebody to manufacture it for them they can own the whole journey.

[Peter Plisner] The other big plus point robots don't need time off and they're happy to work 24 hours a day Peter Plisner BBC Midlands today.

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