Welcome to the team Hayley, as our first dedicated US team, what will you be looking to build your desk around? 

Hi James, thank you, it is great to be part of the team. I wouldn't say there was one main industry that we are focussing on however in terms of skills we will be specialising within automation & controls engineering & validation (just to mention a few of the top line areas). If you had to push me to be more specific, I would say it is everything under the 'Automation 4.0' umbrella and this could be for the pharmaceutical, systems integration, chemical & industrial automation industries.

With location we want to focus on the East Coast to start with, especially with the growing investment in that area, however we are open to supporting clients across the US and will be spreading our reach as the team grows. 

Exciting stuff! In terms of trends in the market what can you see being a big trend over the coming year?

Good question, I think you can't look past Virtual PLCs and the impact that they are going to have on the market. The development of the technology will mean that automation engineering teams can work together more efficiently, speeding up developments. Risks are minimised and new features can be deployed across whole fleets of PLCs at the press of a button.

This is a game-changer for the industry, whether you are part of a large team of automation engineers pushing further the limits of automation sophistication, or you’re one of the few in-house automation experts spending time travelling instead of solving problems. you can free up your time, and manage all your PLCs remotely, workers are now empowered to rapidly change and extend existing automation systems. 

Sounds like a gamechanger, surely AI will be playing its part in future developments as well?

Something everyone wants to know! AI is always going to be at the forefront of people's minds in the industry but let's be honest, we will always need people when close looped AI is involved. Taking the data and making decisions based on that with the human eye means regardless of how good the technology becomes we will always be in the business of putting the best people into the best roles. Arguably the only change will be the remote nature of work developing and being able to make expertise a worldwide commodity not limited by geographical constraints.