Back in the days when test equipment was stuffed with glowing valves – vaccuum tubes if you want to be long-winded – the Test Gear maintenance department at what was then Plessey Co Ltd in New Lane, Havant was run as a profit centre, and so used routinely to change all the valves in each piece of equipment when its time for routine maintenance came around, because the department made a profit on valves, so a robot developed by Toshiba Corp would have had a beneficial effect on the company’s overall bottom line: Toshiba says that the system it has developed can set up an oscilloscope in an average of 20 minutes, about the same time as a skilled engineer.
