Robotic poetry in motion Yaskawa

robotic poetry in motion

Yaskawa is a global technology group that is the world’s largest provider of robotics and motion control systems. In Europe the company continues to see strong growth with additional capacity for its ‘Motoman’ robotics created by the opening of its new high-tech production facilities in Slovenia. Philip Yorke reports.

Founded in Japan in 1915, Yaskawa has provided industrial automation processes for the mining, mechanical engineering and toolmaking sectors for over 100 years. This is in addition to offering high-tech processes for the automotive, packaging, textile and semi-conductor industries. With more than 18,000 employees and over 60 subsidiaries worldwide, the group achieves annual sales volumes of over 4 billion Yen.

The broad range of Yaskawa’s business activities covers drives, motion controls, robotics systems and engineering, as well as information technology. This makes it one of the few global players able to supply advanced components and solutions for virtually all the world’s industries from a single source.

New centre of excellence

Following two years of design and construction, Japanese technology group Yaskawa has now opened its state-of-the-art European robotics centre of excellence at Kočevje, in Slovenia. Yaskawa started European production of its Motoman robots in Japan at the end of 2018 and has since seen expediential demand.

The latest European investment is around 25 million euros. The new plant supplements the company’s existing production facilities in Japan and China and will satisfy about 80 per cent of the European demand for Motoman robots.

At the official opening ceremony earlier this year, a total of 13 representatives of the Yaskawa management and politicians cut the ribbon met to inaugurate the company’s first European robot manufacturing facility. The 300 invited guests included Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec, EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc and other celebrities from Slovenia and all over Europe. “Slovenia and Japan are bound by a long tradition of economic cooperation. I am convinced that this factory will further strengthen our cooperation in future,” said Prime Minister Sarec in Kočevje and promised: “We will do our best to ensure that Slovenia remains an attractive investment location.”

Responding to high demand

With the third global production facility for Motoman industrial robots, Yaskawa is responding to the significant rise in demand in Europe and the EMEA region. In his opening address Masahiro Ogawa, Executive Officer of YASKAWA Electric Corp. and General Manager Robotics Division, explained: “Our goal is to shorten supply chains and delivery times, to enable us to react faster to regional market requirements and to our customers’ wishes – not only with the new plant, but also with a major European robotics development centre.”

Bruno Schnekenburger, CEO & President of YASKAWA Europe, added: “With this investment we want to further strengthen direct contacts with our customers in Europe and work even more closely on the path to Industry 4.0, not least through first-class customer service.”

The advanced robots to be manufactured in Kočevje will be the current Motoman GP series with a payload of 7 to 225 kg. The GP series includes compact and extremely efficient handling robots for high-speed joining, packaging and general handling applications. “GP” stands for “General Purpose“, also for diverse applications. The new 6-axis robots are true productivity drivers.

The new facility has a total gross area of over 12,000 m², of which 10,000 m² are dedicated to production. The new factory building offers capacity for the manufacture of up to 10,000 Motoman robots per year. The new building was designed by the Slovenian

architects’ office Andrej Kalamar, and fulfils stringent requirements regarding sustainability and efficiency.

The prerequisites for this were created in the planning phase with a software-supported simulation of the building in the form of a ‘digital twin’. The “Building Information Modelling” method – abbreviated to BIM – was used for the coordinated planning of the whole building with all parallel works, and simulated in the virtual digital model prior to the start of construction, then tested and corrected as needed.

Ambitious european strategy

Yaskawa is pursuing an ambitious expansion strategy in Europe. “Current investments in Slovenia, similar to those recently made in Germany, France and Sweden, constitute a strategic element of the Europe initiative of the Yaskawa Group, as anchored in our global corporate goals ‘Vision 2025’ ” said Manfred Stern, Regional Head, Yaskawa Europe. In relocating its technological know-how and production competence from Asia to Europe, the company, is consciously acting against the international trend.

Employing a workforce of over 2,000 people at its various European locations, Yaskawa Europe GmbH with its head office in Eschborn, Germany, recently generated annual sales exceeding 600 million euros. Approx. 300 people are currently employed at Yaskawa’s European Robotics Division, whose headquarters are located at Allershausen near Munich. Yaskawa has maintained its own subsidiary in Slovenia since 1990.

New Single-Phase solutions

Yaskawa’s latest Single-Phase-Converter (SPC) converts singlephase power to DC power for use by its variable frequency drives. The SPC is the ideal solution for solving the biggest problems facing business owners that power medium-sized motors in rural areas. They can be faced with high costs to run three-phase power, limited single-phase motor options, and a wide range of quality issues.

Enabling rural applications such as agriculture, lumber mills, and oil & gas, and pumping to utilise three-phase variable speed control offers a host of new possibilities to their businesses. Three-phase motors are typically more efficient than their single-phase counterparts and more readily available. Adding variable speed control of three-phase motors offers a host of advantages, including improved process control and quality, minimised energy consumption, and reduced maintenance.

Jason Wellnitz, product manager for Yaskawa’s Single Phase Converter and pump drives, said, “We are proud to continue with Yaskawa’s history of introducing innovative products to motor control applications. We listened to our customers and hope we have delivered on their needs.” The SPC is available in 230 VAC models from 20 to 60 HP and 460 VAC models from 30 to 125 HP. n

For further details of Yaskawa’s latest high-tech robotic products and services visit: www.yaskawa.com