Japanese robot manufacturers boosting up production capacity

Citation

(2012), "Japanese robot manufacturers boosting up production capacity", Industrial Robot, Vol. 39 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2012.04939eaa.007

Japanese robot manufacturers boosting up production capacity

Article Type: News From: Industrial Robot: An International Journal, Volume 39, Issue 5

Japan’s industrial robot industry is becoming increasingly reliant on China, with various robot makers hurrying to boost production in hopes of winning more orders from the auto industry there.

During the first three months of 2011, Japanese companies shipped \118.7 billion ($1.44 billion) worth of industrial robots, up 33 percent from the first quarter of 2010. Much of that rise came thanks to strengthen business with auto assembly plants in China.

Given the prolonged slump in equipment investments in Japan, the Chinese market seems destined to grow even more important.

Dr Sakakibara, President of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), in his presentation on IFR, said “the robot industry will increase at yearly average 6% from 2012 to 2014. Robot introduction continues in rising nation market and North America, and robot supply to China in particular increases rapidly, and China will be the biggest robot market of the world by the end of 2014”. On the other hand, the past domestic market in car and electric industry will stay only flat because of the strong yen and the energy shortage after Fukushima nuclear disaster. Japanese robot industry is desperately trying to respond the increasing demand from the emerging nation market and create new market in domestic Japan with the new strategy.

Yaskawa (www.yaskawa.co.jp) announced that the company will build a robot plant in Changzhou City, Jiangsu, China and put it into operation in March, 2013. The plant will produce 6,000 robots for the year 2015.

That is the very first offshore production of Japanese industrial robots. In the past, the key components for robot production, servomotors and precision reduction gear have not been available in China, which hampered Japanese robot manufacturers from building robots in China. However, now that Yaskawa is constructing a new factory for servomotors in Liaoning Shenyang City, China that will start production in the summer, 2012 and Nabtesco, the leading speed reduction gear manufacturer, eyeing a Chinese production, has already purchased land for future production. Yaskawa believes that the production environment is changing and production in China is the way to go.

NACHI-Fujikoshi (www.nachi-fujikoshi.co.jp/) announced that the company will start building a plant in Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu, China at June, 2012 for hydraulic machinery and precision tools for machine tools, cars and, construction machinery. Its production will start in January, 2013. The investment amounted to about 4,000,000,000 yen.

The company aims at sales amount 10,000,000,000 yen by the new factory in 2015.

The total floor space is 35,000 m². The plant will have 200 employees and workers by the end of 2015.

The plant is located within one hour drive from its sales base in Shanghai.

Executive vice-president, Katayama, said that future production of machine tools and robots is in the picture.

Fanuc (www.fanuc.co.jp) inaugurated a new plant for industrial robots at its headquarters Oshino-mura, Yamanashi, on December 20. The production capacity of the plant is 5,000 units per month, twice as big as the previous production volume.

At the inauguration ceremony Dr Seiuemon Inaba, Honorary Chairman of Fanuc, boasted “Now the world’s biggest robot factory is here! From here Fanuc will supply robots to the whole world”.

The new plant consists of a main assembly factory with a total of 40,000 m² floor space and a mechanical component factory with 15,000 m² floor space.

In the mechanical component factory, there are machining centers and robot cells consisting of a large-sized robot, a small robot. The robots are equipped with visual sensors. A large-sized robots lift a work to be put into a machining center and a small robot set it to the fixture.

The unmanned factory is running for 24 consecutive hours.

Fanuc’s robotic business is said to be history best for the year 2011 in terms of all of receiving orders, shipment and turn-overs.

Fanuc claims that the company overcomes the high-rising yen by automatizing the production. At the Shanghai factory the company is conducting systemization.