JAKA Robotics builds plant next to Toyota

An investor like Softbank from Japan doesn't have it easy either. He is presented with visions at an early stage, invests and is not infrequently disappointed. One example is the Pepper robot. Softbank invested in it at an early stage. However, it was never consistently developed further. Here, Softbank has lost money, but is still involved. As is well known, it sold Pepper to United Robotics Groups (URG) in the spring and received shares in it in return. URG can be trusted to make Pepper a success after all. Despite this disappointment, Softbank remains open to robotics. After its investment in Agile Robots, it recently took a stake in JAKA Robotics from China. The investment in two cobot manufacturers and thus potential competitors may be surprising, but it makes sense from an investor's point of view: "Someone will come through," is the thinking.

JAKA already has a production capacity of 10,000 units and yet is building new

A revealing article appeared the other day, which can be accessed behind a payall(link) and whose cover image has been used here as a screenshot. JAKA announced to build a factory in the Japanese automotive center Nagoya to be closer to its important customer Toyota. At the same time, it is intended to gain a technological edge in its home market of China. Because Toyota, which is already served worldwide, is certainly a demanding customer. Toyota will exclusively receive cobots that can do more than others from JAKA. One hundred of this "For Toyota" series have already been delivered. Up to now, JAKA has only produced at its single plant in Changzhou, China. Its annual capacity of 10,000 units should almost match that of Universal Robots. However, Universal Robots has so far produced far more. JAKA is currently trying to grow not only in its home market, but also in the rest of Asia. Europe is still (!) playing a subordinate role. The last quarterly figures were not pleasing for Universal Robots with regard to Asia.

Japanese production standards to apply

The purpose of the production facility in Japan is also to achieve and perhaps also learn Japanese production standards. These are all the more important as a production facility with a capacity of 50,000 units per year - unimaginable from today's perspective - is scheduled to go into operation in China at the beginning of 2024. The quality of the JAKA cobots is already said to be very good: one failure every 80,000 hours.

Lighter robots as a goal

Another target is a ratio of dead weight to payload of 2:1 instead of 3:1 today.

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The author of this blog is significantly involved in the AI/robotics project Opdra. He advises robotics companies and investors on market analysis and funding/subsidies. More about him can be found here.