Uniting for the future Yaskawa Europe

UNITING FOR THE FUTURE

Yaskawa Europe GmbH offers its customers integrated solutions in robotics and drives and motion. Abigail Saltmarsh looks at the company as it plans for an exciting future.

Yaskawa Europe GmbH aims to be a one-stop supplier of electric drives and industrial robots. In June 2010, Yaskawa Electric Europe GmbH and Motoman Robotec GmbH announced their merger under the name of Yaskawa Europe GmbH.

The merger of the two YASKAWA subsidiaries, specialists in the production of inverter drives and robots respectively, was in line with the company’s new marketing strategy for the world of automation.

The step allowed a more integrated customer service, generating further synergies and uniting the offering under one single brand name. The idea was that the new business units Robotics and Drives and Motion would operate under the roof of Yaskawa Europe, offering customers of both segments integrated solutions. Only very few competitors in the global market would be able to match the scope of Yaskawa’s one-stop product portfolio of electric drives and industrial robots.

Working together

Following the merger, Yaskawa Europe now employs a staff of 900 in Europe, offering a very broad portfolio and comprehensive local services via subsidiaries in 14 countries. As a Japanese engineering company, it realised early on the importance of being close to the customer in Europe.

To streamline transport logistics, it set up European production sites for servos, inverters and system solutions with industrial robots. Local development departments and the European Technical Centre (EUTC) supported the effort by offering a strong global network to customise solutions for the needs of the European market.

In Japan, the drive and motion technology and Motoman robots have always operated under the joint company name of Yaskawa. After the merger of the business units in Europe – and simultaneously in the USA – the whole organisation was operating along similar lines.

A global leader

Founded in 1915, the parent company Yaskawa Electric Corporation presently employs a global staff of 8,000 employees and generates annual sales of more than €2.5 billion. Every year, Yaskawa manufactures 1.6 million inverters, 800,000 servos and 22,000 industrial robots.

This makes the company the global number one supplier of inverters, servos and industrial robots, offering a broad

range of know-how. Yaskawa servo drives are used in Motoman robots, while the in-house robots enhance the performance of Yaskawa inverters, which are renowned worldwide for their reliability.

Yaskawa has been known for decades as an originator of visionary ideas that were to become state-of-the-art technology in later years. The word ‘mechatronics,’ for example, was first used by Yaskawa to describe the core technology of its product development. Today it is the standard approach to all modern automation.

The list of innovations from the company also includes the three-level inverter, the matrix converter, the dual-arm robot, and the seven-axis robot. A recent addition to the list is the service robot SmartPal, which was presented at Automatica 2010. This mature robot generation offers solutions for the future challenges of an ageing population.

Advanced technology

Special types of robots and the newly developed high-performance DX100 controller ensure high productivity. The company provides the widest range of robots, including application dedicated robots for welding, picking, packing, palletising, handling, painting and clean-room applications. This technological leadership achieves the highest possible effectiveness and profitability.

All Yaskawa manipulators use advanced technology. Robot models specially designed for specific areas of application and that provide maximum productivity to the user include the HP-/MH-series (general purpose and handling), the SDA-/SIA-series (flexibility), the ES-/MS-/VS-series (spot welding), the VA-/MA-series (shielded arc welding), the MPK-series (picking and packing) and the MPL-series (palletising).

The Motoman name has been known for its ability to provide know-how and a product spectrum of unequalled possibilities – especially in areas such as green automation, vision technology, and seven to 15-axis and dual-arm robots. It also has a name in the new technologies of six-axis robots, with payloads ranging from 3kg to 800 kg, fouraxis palletising robots, new five-axis highspeed picking robots, shelf-type robots, painting robots, specially dedicated arc welding and spot welding robots and Scara robots. Motoman is also renowned for its next-generation DX100 controller using patented multiple robot control technology to easily handle multiple tasks including the control of up to eight robots (72 axes).

The future is exciting for Yaskawa Europe GmbH. It is looking ahead with optimism.

Today, the two business units in Europe generate an annual sales volume of €250 million. By 2012, Yaskawa Europe GmbH’s business plans envisage a sales volume of €400 million and a staff of 1,000 employees. It also expects to see a market share of 10 per cent in inverters and 15 per cent in robots. n