Avocet Steel Strip Ltd

It’s no wonder that people find it hard to keep up with technological change.

Consider the 3 laws that govern this change;

Moores law states that computer processor capacity doubles every 2 years – this has been true since 1970.

Whereas Koomeys law tells us that at a fixed computing load the amount of battery needed will reduce by a factor of two within 18 months and finally Kryders law states that the amount of data storable in a given space will double every 2 years.

What this means for individuals is that a graduate starting a career in 2019 will be faced by technology 500,000 times more powerful than the day they started after only 20 years of work. As a year passes so Technology becomes more powerful, smaller in size more pervasive and cheaper.

There is a real fear that human work will be replaced by AI technology. By a machine that neither eats nor sleeps, never tires, operates 24 hours a day, doesn’t take holidays or need to save for a pension. Technology will change our world and change our very perception of what it means to live and work. History though tells us that the past will remain as will the nostalgia for times when life was more simple.

Today, within 5 miles from here it’s still possible to see a steam engine working. Watch flour ground by a watermill, see a blacksmith shoe a horse and watch a craftsman make beautiful stained glass. Over the hills cutlery and knives are still hand made, stone walls are built and a stall in the local market sells vinyl records. The past is not forgotten.

So too with manufacturing industry and the services it requires.

We at Avocet are at the forefront of technological change. Working closely with clean energy R&D and manufacturers to establish a supply chain for the bespoke special metals that they will need. We began as a steel supplier 23 years ago and we know now that in the immediate future steel demand will reduce dramatically especially in the automotive sector. The large steel service centres selling huge tonnages of sheet coil and plate once common in all industrial areas will become as scarce as Corn Merchants today. Steel will still be required for those particular applications that remain. Many will be heritage but some still modern. The need will be for bespoke steel specifications in small to modest volumes.

Our partners already help us to  service this market and what ever the challenges that technological progress presents we know we will be able to help. We have the knowledge, the experience and the will. Like Janus the ancient Roman God we have one face looking to the future and the other to the past. All our customers are important to us, both the new ones and old ones.