Convergence of Service and Industrial Robotics
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The document discusses the convergence of industrial and service robotics. It notes that in the past, industrial and service robotics were seen as separate fields, but that is changing as technologies cross-pollinate. For example, lighter and less expensive industrial robots originally developed for services are now being used in factories. The document also addresses workforce issues, technology developments, revenue models, market potential and challenges, and who may succeed in selling robots to the 90% of manufacturers not currently using them. It argues both fields can benefit from merging ideas and talent.
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Convergence of Service and Industrial Robotics
- 1. The Convergence of Service and Industrial Robotics 2011-04-02 RoboBusiness 2012 Samuel Bouchard President @sambouchard 2012-10-24 samuel@robotiq.com
- 2. 2007 VS 2011 2007 RoboDevelopment 2011 RoboBusiness vs “We’re making good money “Robotics is selling service robots (and a where PCs were lot of things around them). in the 70’s!” “Robotics is where Here’s how.” consumer electronics was in the 70’s!” - Service Robots People “We’ll make piles of money… But “Hey, we’re still “How can we how?” a big part of get a piece of robotics.” that new pie?” - Service Robots People - Industrial Robots People 2
- 3. WHAT IS A ROBOT? “ I can't define a robot, but I know when I see one.” - J. Engelberger, co-founder of Unimation 3
- 4. WHAT IS AN INDUSTRIAL ROBOT? General definition 1. Robot manipulator 2. Used in a factory 3. For manufacturing operations 4
- 5. WHAT IS A SERVICE ROBOT? General definition All the rest (!) …split in 2 sub-categories: – Personal (B2C, Domestic) – Professional (B2B, B2G) 5
- 7. WHAT ARE THESE? 1. Mobile robot 2. Used in a factory 3. For logistics operations 1. Robot manipulator 2. Used on the road 3. For cleaning operations 7
- 8. ROBOTS AND MARKETS CLASSIFICATION 1. Platform types Manipulator arm, Mobile robot, Autonomous underwater / aerial / ground vehicle, Humanoid … 2. Industry / Environment Factory, Military, Office, Distribution center, Hospital, … 3. Application / Process Making things (Assembly, pick and place, welding), Moving things, Moving people, Cleaning, Inspecting … 8
- 9. PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL SERVICE ROBOTICS ROBOTICS ROBOTICS RESEARCH NORTH AMERICA EUROPE 9 Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosasay
- 10. CONNECTING THE SILOS 10 Image: http://www.eurobotics-project.eu/about-eurobotics/main-objectives/main-objectives.html
- 11. PEOPLE AND KNOW-HOW MIGRATION PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL SERVICE ROBOTICS ROBOTICS ROBOTICS RESEARCH 11 Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosasay
- 12. CONNECTING THE SILOS PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL SERVICE ROBOTICS ROBOTICS ROBOTICS RESEARCH Photo: Clearpath Photo: Robo Gas Inspector 12
- 13. WORKFORCE PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS vs SERVICE ROBOTICS 13
- 14. TECHNOLOGY : INDUSTRIAL 14
- 15. TECHNOLOGY : SERVICE 15
- 16. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: NEW PLATFORMS for MANIPULATION in FACTORIES Universal Robot UR5 Kuka Light Weight Robot Photo: 123 Automation Photo: Fraunhofer IFF 16
- 17. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: NEW PLATFORMS for MANIPULATION in FACTORIES ABB Frida Rethink Baxter Kawada Nexstage Photo:IEEE 17
- 18. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: NEW PLATFORMS for DIFFERENT PROCESSES in the FACTORY - Logistics - Mobile manipulators Seegrid GP8 Pallet Truck Kuka Omnirob 18
- 19. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: SOFTWARE & PERCEPTION Image: SwRI 19
- 20. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: SOFTWARE & PERCEPTION Image: SwRI Image: Universal Robotics 20
- 21. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE SERVICE to INDUSTRIAL: INTEGRATION MRK Systeme SafeGuiding QPoint Robo-Nav Photo: Qpoint Robotics 21
- 22. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE INDUSTRIAL to SERVICE Rosie Jetson Baxter More Compoelxity Level Complex Unimate Simpler Unstructured Semi-structured Structured Process 22
- 23. TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE INDUSTRIAL to SERVICE : COMPARING THE SPECS 23
- 24. GO-TO-MARKET : VALUE CHAIN Robot Software Manufacturers Components Distributors Manufacturers Internal Integrators Systems Production Floor Integrators 24
- 25. GO-TO-MARKET : VALUE CHAIN Robot Software Manufacturers Components Distributors Manufacturers Production Floor 25
- 26. GO-TO-MARKET : REVENUE STREAMS PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS vs SERVICE ROBOTICS (manipulators) – Hardware – Hardware (robots, controllers, accessorie (robots, controllers, accessorie s) s) – Software – Software (3rd Party Apps?) – Aftermarket – Aftermarket – Repeat business – Repeat business – Training – Integration 26
- 27. MARKET POTENTIAL PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS vs SERVICE ROBOTICS (manipulators) – Double digit until 2015 – 90% of manufacturing (Source: IFR) companies still don’t use robots (Source: the Manufacturing Institute) – Well documented market – Market to be defined – 40% of manufacturing companies refuse work because of skilled workers shortage in 2010. – In 2006, 50,000 experienced welders retired while 25,000 newly trained entered the profession. (Numbers for USA, Source: American Welding Institute) 27
- 28. INDUSTRIAL OUT OF THE FACTORY? Image: UT Austin 28
- 29. WHO WILL SELL TO THE 90% ? PROFESSIONAL INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS vs SERVICE ROBOTICS (manipulators) For: For: – Well developed sales – No legacy to support, free to channel, integration partners and innovate customer base – Can leverage state-of-the art in – Complete product line robotics, leverage low cost (scale, processes) components – Money – New standards Against: – Maintenance of legacy accounts Against: and technology – Making robots is not easy – Supporting the xx% growth – Sales channel to build – Product unfit to market – Limited to human scale (integration cost and complexity, overkill specifications) 29
- 30. INDUSTRIAL TO SERVICE 30
- 31. robotiq.com TOOLS FOR AGILE AUTOMATION @sambouchard 31
Notas do Editor
- I'm very happy to attend -- and to speak -- at this event.I attended my first Robotics Trends event in 2007. It was called Robo Development and it was held in San Jose. I was still a grad student at the Laval University Robotics Lab. I knew at that time I wanted to start a robotics company so I went to the event.
- You could hear the classic “robotics is where the PC industry was in he 70’s”, that was people from Microsoft.Folks from Evolution robotics had a slightly different point of view, comparing robotics to consumer electronics. Looks like that was a viable point of view considering the amount they recently got from iRobot.PC or electronics, one way or the other, robotics would be big. But how would we make it happen? That, nobody really knew.I came back saying wow, robotics is going to be a gold rush! But at the same time, I had a feeling that no one had clearly figured out HOW robotics would become a big thing. Then came 08 and 09 and working in robotics looked more like digging coal with a shovel than selling gold. Even the Robotic Trends events were put on pause to start again last year in Boston. And it is while attending last year’s event that the idea of this talk came. Because there were important changes from 2007 to 2012.First, listening to the business tracks, you could see that the service robot companies had matured. Business models were clear and some of them were making very good money. Second thing that I've noticed is the presence of the industrial robot guys, that were not there at all in 2007. While in 2007 there were mainly new robotic companies, call them service robots .Last year, I saw a lot of the classic players, the ABBs, Adepts and the Motoman's to attend and participate. Tracks on traditional robot applications were even added to the program.So it made me wonderAre the service robotics folk about to stop looking at industrial robots as a prehistoric technology?Are the industrial people about to stop looking at service robots as gadgets in a quest for a business model?In brief, are we about to see the convergence of industrial and service robotics?"
- A very prominent figure of robotics, Joseph Engelberger who co-founded the company that sold the first industrial robot, was already struggling with the definition of a robot. And today, we as an industry are not perfectly clear on the definition of industrial vs service robots.
- The most widely accepted definition of an industrial robot is a robotic manipulator -- an arm – used in a factory, to do manufacturing tasks (welding, assembly, pick and place, packaging, etc.)
- And service robots, well, it’s all the rest. That seems a little broad to me.There are 2 generally accepted subsets of service robots. 1- Personal or domestic service robotsPersonal service robots can be Intelligent toys Your roombaPersonal telepresence robots2- Professional service robotsIn this presentation, I will not talk about personal service robots.
- Professional robots are the ones sold to businesses or government organizations. Examples are shown on this slideMilitary (teleoperated on the ground or autonomous airplanes).Logistics robots Robotic ice cream kiosksUnmanned underwater vehiclesThis one is a transmission line inspection robot from Hydro-Quebec When I use the term service robots in this presentation, I’ll refer to professional service robots.
- Alright, we have a definition for both industrial and service robots.So what is this one?A mobile robot, ok that is a service robotBut it is used in a factory, so should it be called industrial?Even though it is used for logistics operations?And what about this one?An ABB robot manipulator. ABB makes industrial robots, right?But it is not in a factoryAnd it is not doing a manufacturing processSo is it a service or an industrial robot?This shows how the line is being blurred between both industries.
- What's confusing is that a combination of attributes are used to define what is an industrial robot. And some robots have a subset of these attributes so we can’t tell if they should be considered industrial or not.So it might be worth working on the classification of the markets as they rapidly evolve.But I'll leave this exercise to the International Federation of Robotics, the IFR, is doing a pretty good job at it so far.This organization makes the most complete compilation of numbers on commercial robotic activities worldwide.They already started in 2009 to split their "World Robotics" annual market analysis into 2 volumes, one for industrial and one for service.
- And their job has to be challenging as industrial robotics and service robotics are two different animals.In North America, service robotics, industrial robotics and robotics academia are isolated. I mean, they do interact, but not on a large scale. Although the National Robotics Initiative brought several people together.The Robotic Industries Association is a trade organization. Its members are robot manufacturers, component providers, system integrators and a few academia and end users. It is active in manufacturing so it brings together the players in industrial robotics. Robotic Trends covers the service robotics activities, organizes events such as this one. But it is not an industry association like the RIA, more of a media company.Then you've got the IEEE and at a smaller scale a few others where academia gets together for conferences and publications.In Europe, people talk a lot more to each other The IFR, based in Europe, traditionally served industrial robotics, but they started to look at service robotics a long time ago. This industry association covers activities from both industries and even includes academic projects in their researches. IEEE is also the main hub for researchers, but they’ve also put in place EURON, the European Robotics Research Network. It brings together all researchers, mostly from university laboratories, but also some from the industry. They even award a prize for successful technology transfer from academia to industry. Then there is an industry driven consortium called EUROP that aims at promoting the robotics industry in Europe.
- There is a will, especially in Europe, to create synergies by mixing different industries.Recently, they closed the loop by creating EU Robotics, that is an even broader umbrella that wants to include EUROP, EURON, as well as investors, policy makers and end users to promote anything robotic in the European Union.
- Another important aspect is the migration of people and technology from academia towards service robotics which is greater than towards industrial robotics. So service robotics, as a new exciting field with lots of fresh graduates, is getting a lot more influence from academia. It is using a lot more of the latest and greatest tools and approaches developed in universities and research centers worldwide.
- What puts me in an interesting position to talk about this convergence is that I live in the 3 worlds. I interact with the industrial robot people, the service robot people and also the research people. What we make at Robotiq is robust robotic hands They can be installed on different robots for applications in factories dealing with a high number of parts, all the way to unstructured environments. We have for instance:Hands on industrial robots doing machine tending or pick and place for automotive parts manufacturers, a very classic industrial robot application. The picture of the mobile robot in the middle is an oil refinery autonomous inspection robot that can do minor interventions.We've also installed the gripper on military robots or robots for application in nuclear glove boxes. And we have hands on humanoid robots, on the Kuka LWR or on mobile manipulators such as this one integrated by Clearpath. So we're one of the companies that do business in the 3 silos, plus we come from academia so we understand it well. We also understand the perception that industrial robotics has of research in robotics. Just a quick story to illustrate this perception Every January the RIA organizes the Robotics Industry Forum It is an event similar to this one here, but focused on industrial robotics. It is another event that I particularly enjoy attending, not only because it is in Florida. It is a great mix of business and technical talks among the decision makers from robot manufacturers and the large integrators. Basically all the people you need to get to know as a young startup in the field.One of the speakers 2 years ago was a successful investor, kind of a legendary character whose nickname was the “Father of the PLC”. He was explaining how he would look at potential deals for investment. He said with a grumpy attitude: "First thing, if the guy has a Ph.D., I just tell him to go away." After he said that, everybody in the audience started to laugh! So I raised my hand to tell him “Sir, the largest industrial robotics company in the world is Fanuc. So for the people here in your audience who work in industrial robotics, the most noticeable company in the world, is Fanuc. Well did you know that their founder and CEO has a Ph.D. ?”That created an awkward moment and the crowd went silent, waiting for a reply from the presenter. OK, that’s not true. Well it is true that the CEO of Fanuc has a Ph.D. But I did not raise my hand to say that. I wish I did. But instead I told myself “it might be a good idea to remove the Ph.D. after my name in the next printout of my business cards...”
- Let’s do an exercise to compare both industries, how they are different and how they influence each other.And let's start with the people. Who's working in both industries? Hopefully I won’t offend anybody here.Industrial robotics is not an easy industry. What you make has to work day in and day out or you'll get a call at 3 AM from someone on the shop floor if your product is stopping the line. The industry is still largely driven by automotive. Can you imagine what happens when the largest auto maker in the world is about to go bankrupt? That's what happened in 2008-2009. It created a network effect and the order books went blank. A lot of employees, including some young ones, were laid off. Since then, business has picked back up. But people are nervous and they prefer to run low in human resources and pile cash in case another crash happens. So right now you have the survivors of the most recent crash. A lot of experienced technicians, engineers and executives, they are very busy, they need to be very efficient in their work and solve the urgent problems. Service [FIRST] In service robotics, you will find a lot more young people. Fresh graduates from college, some being former FIRST contenders, with the passion and naivety, willing to apply the new stuff they've just learned.So what happens is that in service robotics the people are importing the latest technologies and tools to the field. Convergence Why is it so different in both industries? First as I said because industrial is not hiring as much as service. Second, it is not a very welcoming environment for startups mainly because people are very busy and want to use the proven recipes. The risk of trying new things is too high and the resources to explore new technologies are scarce. There are some startups in the field but not a lot. Still, I’m sure you’ll see more that will take the challenge because there is great opportunity and there will be a natural guard change occurring in the next few years.Third, industrial robotics is not as attractive as service robotics for someone just out of school. It is not as new, the cool factor is not there anymore. If you're a grad student and go to an academic robotics conference, there is very little about industrial challenges and it is not because there are no challenges worth working on from a research standpoint. People think everything has been done in the field because it is where robots have mainly been sold in the last 50 years. But that is an illusion. Yes some aspects were solved a long time ago. There are vast areas, even in automotive, where robotics can not be used today because of technical limitations. Manufacturing robotics still needs a lot of innovation.
- What about the differences in technologies?The core of industrial robots are Kinematics, motor drives, safety, manufacturing process knowledge. All of them use a proprietary software, closed controllers. They are programmed on a teach pendant or using offline tools.Most of them have integrated vision to their offering for some time. They are available at different scales of reach, payload and speed.They are very mature platforms, they are real workhorses and I am still impress every time I am beside one, whether it is super strong or super fast.
- Professional service robots are more about: Navigation, Human-Robot interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Open Source Software, Perception including Vision, Embedded electronics and Wireless.They are leveraging open source software and consumer electronics to speed up development and reduce the cost of the solution.They have rapidly evolving platforms.Some times not as mature and reliable as they should be. But that will come with time as they build corporate knowledge of what can go wrong out in the field. Platforms will also open to component providers that will add value to their solutions.
- From a technology standpoint, how is the convergence happening?First, you start to see manipulators that include service robot concepts such as direct teaching and safe human-robot interaction. The closest thing to an industrial robot that includes service robot concepts is probably the Universal Robot. Available in 2 sizes, 5 kg and 10 kg, these are portable robots that don’t need fencing around them. They don’t need fencing not because they know there if someone is around, but simply because their mechanics can’t apply a dangerous force to a human, the joints being back drivable and the links having no sharp edges. Their specifications are not as impressive as a standard industrial robots. They are not necessarily more affordable to purchase either, but the cost and complexity of integrating and reprogramming them if significantly lower. They still have a teach pendant but they can be taught by dragging their arm around the desired trajectory. Their controller runs on Linux. Several hundreds of them have already been sold, and a majority of them, to first time robot users. The are from Denmark and were present in a US trade show for the first time last September at IMTS.The Kuka Light Weight Robot has been on the market for a few years. It has been sold to several research institutions working on human-robot interaction and advanced manufacturing. It is also safe to be around and can be put in impedance control mode to offer a desired force feedback to the operator. It is more expensive than a traditional robot but still has found its way into a few factories to do fine assembly, taking advantage of the built-in force feedback at every joint. Kuka licensed the core technology from the DLR, the German equivalent of the NASA in the USA.
- You also have dual-arm platforms that present the same capabilities as the ones just shown, but also include even more service robot concepts. The main one being perception using several sensors.These guys are very close to human scale and are made to be put in place of a human worker without modifying the work environment.ABB unveiled Frida last year but are very quiet about when this will become a product. It is supposedly targeted at tasks such as assembly. Kawada is adapting its technology of humanoid robots that was used in research for a long time to come up with a robotic co-worker.And Baxter does not need any presentation to this audience, right?
- There are also other types of platforms than manipulators that are finding use in the factory environment. Think of all the fork lifts that are being driven in factories all over the place. Moving the raw goods when they come into the factory or the finished ones to the shipping area seems to be a good fit for robots. This involves a lot of labor and moving material around is not adding any value to what’s being manufactured. This is also true between manufacturing steps. As discussed by John Dulcinos from Adept on Monday, this has the potential to change the layout of factories and add a lot of flexibility to their automation.I’ve always wondered if we’ll see the Kiva concept used to feed parts on a highly flexible manufacturing line. If you go on a car assembly line for instance, there is a lot of material on the side to feed the workers or the robots with parts for the different car models and options. This is a problem that has a lot in common with the challenges found in the distribution centers.And there are also combinations of manipulators and mobile platform such as the Omnirob. There you have a manipulator that can do its work at different places in the factory where it is needed. It can also transport parts between different stations. You can imagine this concept being interesting in modular factories that are not linearly arranged.One important difference between a manipulator in the factory and a mobile robot is the level of connectivity to the IT system that they need. A manipulator is pretty much stand alone, sometimes connected to a PLC to get a few simple inputs. The mobile robots on the other hand have to exchange much more information back and forth to the ERP system.
- We talked about new platforms used in factories. Another type of convergence that is happening is the augmentation of existing industrial robots from using service robotics concepts.So why can’t we use open source software with the existing industrial manipulators? Then you could potentially have the best of both worlds: use the payload, speed, reliability, safety, process knowledge and built-in kinematics from the mature platforms, combined with the perception stacks for instance that were developed in ROS. That is exactly what ROS Industrial is all about, an effort driven by Southwest Research. Paul Evans for SwRI presented the idea on Monday and it is illustrated here. You have the robot with its standard controller. And you make a link to a PC that runs ROS and that can take full advantage of the libraries developed everywhere by world-class researchers.The initial challenge that they have is that industrial robot makers are making a lot of money by locking their users with their proprietary software so they can sell their vision application, their force control application, etc. Still, from what Paul was saying on Monday, most seems to be understanding the Innovator’s dilemma and are now opening a bridge to ROS Industrial, so soon 3rd parties will be able to build applications. For a robot hand peripheral manufacturer like us, these new perception capabilities on industrial robots are great news. Right now in industrial robotics, the repeatability of the gripper is still used so the blind robot can precisely execute the tasks. If you have flexible grippers, you can always pick the part, but you don’t know necessarily how exactly it was picked. But if you can steer the arm that grabbed the part using vision or tactile sensing, you can take full advantage of the gripper flexibility. This would be complicated to do for every robot. If we can do it on ROS industrial and have it run on all robots, it makes a big difference.
- And what is true for open source software is also true for the cheap but powerful sensors used in service robotics such as the Kinect.Here are two examples, one from Southwest Research, the other one from Universal Robotics (Not universal robot) doing case palletizing. And there are a few other players in the field.For those who would be concerned about the robustness of that kind of consumer electronics in the factory, I can mention two things. First, keep in mind that the US military control some of their robots out in the field with xBox controllers. Second, at 100$ a piece, just buy 5 of them and put them on the shelf.
- New manipulator platforms have highly desirable features that traditional robots don’t have, such as lead-through teaching.We can imagine that industrial robot users will look at these functionalities on the new robots and wonder why they can’t have it. Some people are working on it.You have two examples of add-on here that can be used on traditional industrial robots to do direct teaching of trajectories. These devices are made by two small companies, one German and the other one from the US.Getting rid of the teach pendant should speed up programming and reduce the skill set necessary to integrate an industrial robot. As these represent important barriers to entry, this should help a lot of small and medium companies get their first industrial robot, even if they have a lot of small runs and changeovers.
- Ok, I talked a lot about how service robotics will influence industrial robotics. What about the other way around?Problems are simpler in industrial robotics because they are better structured. Manipulation is not an easy problem. Still, it was first done by a robot 50 years ago. It is because they could remove all the uncertainties in the environment.Before going to fully unstructured environments like homes and offices, to me it makes sense to break the problem into smaller, simpler parts in the industrial world. So before reaching Bosa Nova’s vision of bringing Rosie Jetson to market, it makes sense to practice in better structured applications. If we use industrial robotics tools that will be able to evolve with service robots, let’s apply them first in semi-structured environments.Plus, in manufacturing, prices can be justified because you’re selling to a company and if you can prove the ROI, it’s already a good starting point. That will give time for the technology and companies to evolve.
- New manipulator robots targeting manufacturing tasks will be sold to people that don’t have a robot right now. But current users of industrial robots will also look at them for areas in the factory where current robots would not work. And they will end up comparing the specs. Even if it’s comparing apples to oranges, people will compare. And I say that because I experience it every week. We sell unique adaptive grippers. They are different than pneumatic grippers. You can control more things, pick a whole lot more different parts. Still, people will be comparing our products specs to traditional ones even if we explain to them it’s not the same thing. It’s a communication challenge, and in the end it pushes us to make better, more capable products. This will happen to the new robots entering the field too.Specs are numbers written black on white on a downloadable pdf file. It is easy to compare them, engineers and technicians love to do that. But how can you quantify ‘flexibility’? Do people really understand the cost of integration? This will be a challenge for the marketers and salespeople bringing the new manipulator platforms to the market.If service robots will put pressure on the industrial ones to add functionalities, industrial robots will put pressure on the service robots to increase their specs.
- I’ve talked a lot about the technology difference and convergence. Let’s see how it impacts the business aspects of the different types of products.Let’s look at how industrial robots end up on the production floor.Because they involve programming skills, there needs to be someone integrating them. This can be an external integrator, that makes his money charging for engineering hours. The integrator can also be within the company. The integrators also put together everything that comes around the robot. Some robots and components are sold locally by distributors.For every dollar spent on a robot, there is usually another 2-8 dollars spent on integration and auxiliary equipment.
- What happens if your robot is so simple to program that anybody can do the integration?You can potentially sell it directly to the production floor, eliminating an important integration cost.This industrial automation market is highly fragmented though. You can drive two hours and see nothing but corn fields, then arrive in the middle of nowhere in front of a million square foot factory with a bunch of small ones around. This is why distributors might still play an important role.And now that Apple has invented the app store, why not do the same things with our new robots? In this case the robot manufacturer becomes a very efficient channel for all 3rd party app developers.
- The goal of industrial robot manufacturers is to sell as many robots as possible. Might sound obvious but every robot sold becomes a channel in itself on which you can sell expensive options, software, spare parts. Ask any industrial integrator or robot manufacturer, they will tell you that repeat business is responsible for the majority of their revenues.For the new platforms, the hardware is more affordable to purchase. Service type manipulators won’t be able to generate money out of training and integration. This is an important part of their competitive advantage to reduce the cost of acquiring and maintaining a robot. So they’ll look at volume and potentially other revenue streams such as the app store previously discussed.
- The IFR predicts growth in the double digits for industrial robots until 2015. This is good considering the current size of the industry. Of course they can’t predict tsunamis, but they base their analysis on a lot of historical and fresh data.The new manufacturing robots are looking at an open market, one where no robots are used today. And it is a larger market than the existing one. When talking to some partner integrators that sell Universal Robots, they tell us that they are finally getting robots into factories that had always refused to look at them. So the market remains to be defined, but the path is getting clearer.In industrialized countries, both types of robots will be sold because of the lack of skilled workers. As mentioned by Greg Olenick from Ellison on Monday, it’s not about replacing workers, it’s about being able to operate even though we can’t find any workers. This labor scarcity is getting more problematic with the ageing population that is retiring without being replaced on the workforce. You have a specific example here for welders in the US.
- Every time a crash in the automotive industry occurs, all the industrial robot companies say ‘never again!’, and start looking at other applications, sometimes even outside the factories. It can be a growth vector, but they should not forget who they are and try to focus on their strengths. Who needs up-time, speed, repeatability and does not care about cost of integration? It is definitely not the home or office environment. There might be some applications where these features are desirable, thinking nuclear or entertainment. To me, this is interesting but looks like small niches. My bet would be to look more closely at construction and automation in the oil and gaz industry. These are two tough places with high labor costs and challenges to find people.
- In a previous slide I had a statistics from the manufacturing institute stating that 90% of the manufacturing companies still don’t use robots today. I’ve also said that they can’t find skilled people. So they need robots. Who will sell it to them, well established industrial robot guys, or the Universal robots and Rethink of this world?One aspect for the industrial robot guys is the ecosystem in which they operate. They already have a lot of customers, integration partners that cover the different geographic and application segments. This takes a lot of time and effort to build.Second, they have a complete product line. Even though the new manipulators have a lot of interesting features, they won’t be suitable for several applications because of their size, or because their specifications do not match a given manufacturing process that could require more repeatability or more speed for instance.Finally, they are doing good right now and have good financial backing which is always a good asset, right?One of the problems in catching these new opportunities is everything that they need to maintain. They still need to give a lot of attention and resources to their large automotive customers. They still need to maintain the technology that they’ve put out there in the last 10 years.Combined that with having to support double-digit growth with limited human resources because you want to pile cash and you realize that it becomes almost impossible to develop quickly, new products for the new applications. Unless they have an isolated group dedicated to that purpose.And last but not least, their robots are not fit for all applications. The main problem being the cost and complexity of integrating the robot, that some small companies could never afford. The new manipulator people can start from scratch and freely innovate. They start that development in a technological environment today that is much different from what it was 10 years ago. So they can leverage all the new software approaches in robotics, all the cheap but reliable electronics and sensors that are available today.They can also influence and take advantage of the new safety standards that was presented by Jeff Fryman on Monday.The flip side of the coin of starting from scratch is that making robots is not easy. Making a prototype is not too bad. Making a robotic product is not easy. It involves many disciplines and to have something that has great performance, that is reliable and cost effective, is a great design and supply chain challenge.Making a robot is one thing, then you need to sell it. Who will be in all those small shops when the time comes that they want to buy a robot? If they have a very attractive product, they will be able to overcome this challenge more easily.And finally, a lot of the interesting features of these robots will not be possible to be scaled to larger, stronger robots. That will confine them to human-scale applications, that should still represent a fair number of applications.
- The industrial robot manufacturers are aware of what is happening and all of them have taken action to be a player in the new applications.All of them are looking at using their existing robots outside of the traditional applications. Some of them are also working on new platforms.ABB has Frida.Adept purchased Mobile Robots some time ago already and are looking to put them in factories.Fanuc, the largest industrial robot manufacturer, has not unveiled anything yet. I am curious to see when they will come up with something.Kuka has the LWR and are working on future generations. They also have mobile platforms. So they seem to be strongly looking at the emerging applications.Yaskawa have been working on service robot prototypes such as the one shown here. They are also partnering with a company in the US to bring to market a mobile manipulator.For the investors in the room, looking at this slide and the previous one, to me this market looks like a very fertile ground for a game of growth and acquisitions. But you’ll have to be patient because robotics in manufacturing has a lot of inertia. It’s going in the right direction but it will take time.So as you see, many signs indicate that industrial and service robotics are converging. To me it will bring a real renaissance to the use of robots in factories. We have very interesting years ahead and the end users will be the biggest winner.