By: Richard Partington
June 30, 2019
“We are under the threat of closure all the time,” says Andrew Peters without a hint of fear in his voice.
As though repeating himself for the hundredth time, the managing director of Siemens’ Congleton factory in Cheshire explains his workers are battling for survival. Competition in this historic market town at the foothills of the Pennines, where lush green hills rise to the craggy moorlands of the Peak District, is increasingly global.
“Everyone is in a race to make their products as efficient and productive as possible. If we didn’t have a drive on productivity we wouldn’t be in business.”
This particular plant turns out more than a million motor drives a year, used to control the speed of airport luggage belts including those at Heathrow and Gatwick. Production here is unrecognisable from a decade ago before the robots arrived, emblematic of industry across the country.