Swapnil Khedekar, Head of Festo GB Operations and President of the BFPA, reflects on how far industrial automation has come and predicts the next big trends for 2025.
The industrial automation sector is facing continued uncertainty as we enter 2025. The UK economy and specifically manufacturing is experiencing negligible growth with many forecasting indices such as the S&P Global Manufacturing PMI dropping in late 2024 below the mid-point threshold, therefore predicting retraction rather than growth. This has led to several major companies reducing investments despite the evident need for increased UK productivity and sustainability. Industry also faces challenges including higher employee National Insurance taxes, regional and global political disruptions, and lack of skilled workforce.
Despite these hurdles, I remain optimistic. Festo celebrates its centenary this year, and we have weathered many storms on the way from our origins as a small woodworking machinery supplier to becoming a pioneer in digitalisation, open architecture controls, and artificial intelligence (AI). We understand that while some automation markets mature or stagnate, others will experience significant growth and create new opportunities. Success lies in anticipating key trends and investing time and effort to make them work for you. Here are my top predictions for 2025.
1 — Designing for sustainability
Sustainability is an ongoing imperative that we cannot afford to ignore. It has many facets, but reducing energy consumption — and thereby carbon footprint and operating costs — is a key focus for UK manufacturers. Investing in energy efficiency offers clear returns, but too often the focus is on initial costs rather than lifetime costs and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). I predict this mindset will evolve over this year, driven by rising energy costs, slow productivity growth, and the escalating impacts of climate change.
Achieving a significant shift in sustainability investments requires a convergence of priorities, resources, and cost considerations. At Festo, we’ve equipped our team with the skills and tools to conduct energy efficiency surveys and optimise design support for customers, but there’s still more work to be done to encourage uptake in these areas. We have also developed software such as the Pneumatic Simulation Tool. Users simply input specific application parameters (such as the number of cycles per minute requirement, tube diameter and length, and positioning time) and the tool identifies the optimum pneumatic cylinders, flow controls, valves, and settings based on energy consumption to deliver the most efficient options. It can also be used to address aspects such as positioning time and CO2 emissions to optimise system design.
2 — More flexible machines
The ability to respond quickly and effectively to changes in market demand is more important than ever for the competitiveness of the UK manufacturing sector. For special-purpose machine builders who frequently change their top-level controllers based on customer specifications, delivering effective automation solutions increasingly requires true openness, modularity, and flexibility.
Recent strides in this direction are exemplified by Festo’s latest valve terminal range, improving on a concept we introduced more than three decades ago. The next-generation VTUX adopts a platform approach that allows for expansion and technological upgrades as demanded by customers and market demands. The innovative VTUX design features a low-cost, hard-wired backplane that can be easily upgraded to a smart bus backplane. This allows for virtually unlimited numbers of valves or inputs and outputs running from a single ethernet node, whether in a single large physical bank or a hybrid installation. Such advancements reduce pneumatic pipe runs, speed up cycle times, and minimise wasted air in ‘dead volume’ tubing. Machine builders can also maintain consistent machine-level drawings, components, and installations, ensuring familiarity and efficiency in design, build, commissioning, and service operations. This consistency translates to significant savings in quote times, lead times, and internal costs.
3 — App-based agility
The VTUX is a symptom of a much wider trend in automation. The need to be agile and responsive to change, coupled with the need to control costs, is driving change in the way we procure and apply automation solutions. The old delineations between pneumatic and electric drives are becoming blurred, as developments in one field influence the other and customers seek optimised solutions that deliver the best of both worlds. The advent of multi-protocol technology is a direct result. Hardware is increasingly technology-neutral, enabling users to select the software most suited to their needs. This trend closely mirrors how we already use mobile phones: the underlying base machine stays the same but we swap out apps depending on what we want to achieve. This trend in an industrial automation setting makes it easier to implement, alter and change processes without significant capital investment, offering new ways to gain a competitive edge.
4 — Transformative technologies
The rapid evolution of AI continues to raise challenges, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While AI adoption can streamline operations and enhance user experiences, spotting genuine business opportunities amidst all the hype can be problematic. Also, adoption is not without its risks. Security and governance are a concern, with a quarter of UK SMEs having suffered an AI-generated cyber-attack in 2024.1 Despite these challenges, there is a growing willingness among UK SMEs to invest in AI and other technologies that can transform their businesses.
My prediction for 2025 is the growth of AI in predictive maintenance. AI allows anomalies in process data to be easily combined with machinery data, where it can be evaluated using analysis models and cloud-based solutions to detect deviations from a normal state earlier than traditional condition monitoring approaches. This means manufacturers can reduce unplanned downtime and increase OEE. Transformative technologies such as the Festo Automation Experience (Festo AX) will help to accelerate AI adoption. Festo AX uses AI based on machine learning, allowing users to extract genuine value from their machine data and enabling them to make prompt and well-informed decisions. It can be integrated flexibly into customers’ systems on premise, in the cloud, or programs can run on edge components directly by the machine. This addresses one of the main challenges between IT and OT, of complying with ever stricter cyber security policies. Festo AX can be applied to improve productivity, reduce energy costs, prevent quality losses, optimise shop floors, and facilitate the creation of new business models through data analysis and understanding.
5 – Skills expansion
The convergence of pneumatics, electronics, and electric motion with merging technologies like AI is leading to the development of hybrid solutions that offer the optimal technology for each application. Their successful deployment and continued evolution require a workforce that can apply existing knowledge in new ways, as well as acquire new skills.
To support these new technologies, Festo is expanding the training on offer through Festo Didactic, with online courses available anytime and anywhere through Festo LX. New, extensive, and exciting educational automation hardware installations across many higher education facilities are also supporting upskilling and reskilling for the digital age, incorporating cutting-edge technologies for renewable energy sources. In addition, our recently restructured Northampton facility features a new product and technology showroom, a technical customer applications centre with flexible knowledge walls, and a sandbox area for green builds and trials.
Conclusion
As we look to 2025 and beyond, Festo’s 100-year journey is a powerful reminder of the importance of innovation, sustainability, and leadership. Our continued success – like that of many UK manufacturers – lies in transcending traditional boundaries. By embracing these principles, we are well-positioned to navigate the uncertainties of the future and continue our legacy of excellence and independence in industrial automation. Innovation drives our workforce, attracts potential customers, and sparks new ideas. While pneumatics remains central to our operations, our expansion into electronics, electric motion, digitalisation, software, and AI has been transformative. Hybrid solutions that integrate multiple technologies are the future, and Festo is poised to lead this transformation.
