Collaborative robots – or cobots – remain the fastest growing segment of industrial automation, projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 30.37 per cent between 2020 to 2025. Cobot market company Universal Robots (UR) just sold it 50,000th UR cobot, which was purchased by a German manufacturer to enable higher productivity and improved employee safety.
The 50,000th cobot was specially handed over the cobot to VEMA technische Kunststoffteile GmbH and VEMA Werkzeug- und Formenbau GmbH located in Krauchenwies-Göggingen, Germany, at a ceremony held at VEMA.
James McKew, regional director of Universal Robots Asia-Pacific said that the occasion showcases Universal Robots commitment to the market. “COVID-19 has certainly accelerated the need to automate and we have seen an increased demand for cobots in the ANZ market.”
He attributes this increase to a number of influences as a result of the pandemic.
“The change in labour availability due to borders being shut has certainly a played a part in this uptick. Further we have seen so many customers pivoting their production to adapt to new consumer demands. The flexibility of cobots to move from one application to another makes them very well suited for quick changeovers,” he said.
According to McKew, other factors such as the ease and affordability of adding a cobot to the production has seen companies who need to increase productivity in the same footprint with a smaller workforce (due to social distancing requirements), embrace cobots as a cost-effective solution.Over the past 15 years, the company has worked hard to develop an entirely new market segment with a mission to enable especially small- and medium sized companies to automate tasks they thought were too costly or complex.