Cobots, and automation in general, can help industries get back to work during the Covid-19 pandemic period, according to Universal Robots (UR) Asia-Pacific regional sales director James McKew.
PKN this week sat down with James McKew to talk about the general state of the cobot and automation market in the Asia-Pacific region, and what to expect during the upcoming UR virtual cobot expo for the Asia-Pacific region.
The expo, running from 6-8 October, will feature an extensive range of demonstrations, insightful keynotes, interactive Q&As, and live chats with automation experts from around the world. UR president Jürgen von Hollen and UR regional sales director Asia Pacific will host a keynote session called Meet the Cobot Leaders.
To register to attend the expo, go to the expo site here.
The following interview with James McKew has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What have been the major trends in the cobot market so far this year?
The global cobot market is predicted to be worth about $3bn by the end of 2020, with more than 70,000 cobots. Currently UR has about 40,000 currently installed cobots.
But for now, we've seen an improvement as we come through our third quarter this year.
Anecdotally, we’re seeing signs of life in the automotive supply sector and machine tools sector in Japan based on incredible demand in China. We’re also seeing Taiwanese businesses reshoring their mainland China operations and sending them to Malaysia or Vietnam, or even India due to the possible US embargo on semiconductor components.
We’re seeing some Korean businesses do something similar. They’re starting to get cautious about having factories in China, which is seeing them make major investments in Vietnam.
In general, across the region, electronics has been quite robust while we wait for the automotive recovery to commence, which we’re starting to see signs of life.
What is the outlook for automation in Australia?
I’m sitting in Singapore, having come from Australia, and they’re both incredibly innovative societies, but they both have a very high cost base.
But, what distinguishes Singapore from Australia is that Singapore has one of the largest – if not the largest – deployed robot populations per worker in the world. Australia has really lagged behind.
Australia needs to have a conversation about fostering a manufacturing sector in the country. We’ve let procurement decide where we get components from, but we haven’t had a big conversation about how we can manufacture components.
When you look at Singapore, they play to humans’ strengths, while using robots for the dirty, not-so-complex things.
I think it’s a shame that Australia made the decision to outsource instead of looking at how they can use automation to do the dirty the repetitive, parts of the manufacturing process – whether that’s in food and beverage processing, or packaging.
With a deployment of automation and cobots, there’s no reason that Australia can’t be competitive like Singapore is in the food industry, for instance. Australia has plentiful food resources, but we can add more value to our food exports, rather than just sending bulk milk, beef, and lamb overseas for processing.
How can cobots help manufacturers during the Covid pandemic?
At some point we have to get back to work. If you have to go back to work in a physically distanced environment, that can have serious impacts on your manufacturing footprint and the space you require.
So, you either have to slow down production, so you can have fewer people, or you need a bigger facility, which requires capital investment. But, with a sensible deployment of cobots in a packaging or processing plant, the robots can take the place of one person, while another person works alongside the cobot. This way you can bring factories back to full production and get as many people back to work as possible, as opposed to maybe not getting many people back to work at all.
What can we expect during the cobot expo?
We’re not the first ones to put on a webinar, so we want to differentiate ourselves in this commoditised space. We’ve been making decisions around not doing things that everyone else has done. People register for these virtual expos, but when they realise it is just a video, as opposed to live people, they lose interest.
We’re trying to make sure that during this cobot expo, people will be there to interact and answer questions. Listening to the customers and their concerns, and the questions they’re asking, is more valuable for us and them than just recording an event.
Despite the folks in Denmark and the US having to get up at crazy hours, we’re going to be crossing to them so they can actually talk to us live. There will also be participants from our region.
