Japanese industrial robot manufacturers eye China as demand grows

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Japanese industrial robot manufacturers eye China as demand grows
The Asahi Shimbun - Aug 11 2013
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201308110029



Japanese industrial robot manufacturers eye China as demand grows
August 11, 2013

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

CHANGZHOU, China--Chinese demand for industrial robots is expected to
skyrocket in the next few years to offset growing labor costs in the country
once called "the world's factory."

Not to miss out, Japanese industrial robot makers, industry leaders, are
setting up manufacturing facilities in China in a bid to win orders and
compete with local and foreign competitors.

One of the Japanese firms is Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp., based in Toyama. In
February, the company launched a large-scale robot manufacturing facility in
Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province, which is located near Shanghai.

It was the first such factory of that scale set up by a Japanese company in
China to produce robots.

"Our policy is we will ship robots within a month after receiving an order.
Our Chinese clients do not tolerate slow shipments," an executive from the
local arm of Nachi-Fujikoshi said.

In May, Yaskawa Electric Corp., based in Kita-Kyushu, one of the four major
industrial robot makers in the world, started operations at its new factory
in Changzhou, also in Jiangsu province. And German manufacturer KUKA is also
scheduled to start operations at its factory in Shanghai in December.

All of the new entrants are striving to catch Swiss maker ABB, which set up
its manufacturing stronghold in Shanghai in 2005.

Rising personnel costs are forcing manufacturers' hands in China; the
minimum wage in the country is rising 10 percent or more each year, while in
Shanghai, it has risen 70 percent in four years.

Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. employs a total of about 1.2
million workers throughout the world, with a large part of that workforce
employed in China. The company concludes contracts with other firms to
manufacture electronic products, and is now the largest such manufacturing
service in the world.

"We are going to introduce 1 million robots in three years to replace human
workers," Terry Tai-Ming Gou, chairman of Hon Hai, said in 2011.

Nearly 22,000 industrial robots went online in China in 2011, up 50 percent
from the previous year. Some estimates show that the figure will reach
35,000 by 2015, the largest in the world.

One Yaskawa Electric executive said the "robot boom in China" is unlikely to
wane.

In its five-year plan ending in 2015, the Chinese government listed several
newly emerging industries as strategically important; one being the robotics
industry. In order to develop a domestic industrial base with robotic
expertise, it said it was necessary to introduce foreign manufacturing
technologies to China.

At the opening ceremony of Yaskawa Electric's new factory in Changzhou in
June, an executive from the China Machinery Industry Federation expressed
that exact expectation: "We hope that Yaskawa not only manufactures
industrial robots (in China) but also teaches technological and marketing
know-how to Chinese companies," he said.

That is because the expertise and skill level of China's largest industrial
robot maker, Siasun Robot & Automation Co., is only 60 to 70 percent that of
its Japanese rivals.

For their part, Japanese and other foreign makers in China are just as eager
to prevent their secrets and know-how from leaking to Chinese competitors.

"Even if Chinese companies can manufacture industrial robots with the same
appearance as ours, they cannot make the software that controls those
robots," said a Yaskawa Electric executive.


(This article was written by Daisuke Hirabayashi and Tokuhiko Saito.)

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN