Rethink Robotics plans large robot manufacturing facility
According to a newspaper article in the "NRZ", the local newspaper for Bochum and thus the new headquarters of Rethink Robotics, the company is planning a robot manufacturing facility with "several hundred jobs" on the former site of the Opel plant in Bochum. This announcement is significant for several reasons: on the one hand because setting up a manufacturing facility is capital intensive, then because such a large number of jobs either implies a lower degree of automation (cf. Franka manufactures Franka at TQ Durach) or simply very high volumes are to be produced, and finally because the sales market is seen for a large number of cobots. In the final stage, the sales target should easily be 10,000 cobots per year. The new models to be presented in spring 2021 will be manufactured there. Little is known about these yet, but the know-how of the co-shareholder Siemens is already to be incorporated here. Siemens had developed a cobot itself, but did not want to manufacture it itself and gave its development to Rethink Robotics as a contribution in kind and thus became a shareholder. Incidentally, Rethink Robotics also sees disabled people as users of cobots. Cobots make it easier for them to integrate into working life.
Even before Rethink, whose new cobots presumably involve a technological leap, Han's Robots Germany will unveil its cobots tomorrow. After 1 1/2 years of development and the participation of up to 50 employees, according to Han's mainly engineers at the sites in Hamburg and Metzingen, David Reger, CEO of Han's Robots Germany, promises a completely new type of cobot with sense and reason. By means of novel environmental perception, drive technologies, control theory, material science, mechanical design and artificial intelligence, markets such as medical technology, home automation and food production in particular are to be conquered. Hyundai may also be aiming for these markets. The South Koreans are apparently aiming to acquire Boston Dynamics.
If Rethink and Han's Robot really do introduce such innovative robots to the market, this will probably primarily be to the detriment of Universal Robots and also Omron, although Universal Robots' sales strength is unique. Kassow Robots is likely to be less affected, as it almost (Franka) has a USP in the seventh axis.
We can only hope that the efforts of the two companies will be more successful than the investments made in 2015 by two robotics companies, each of which lost a sum in the eight-figure euro range as a result of their investments. This will be reported on here soon.
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The author of this blog is significantly involved in the AI/robotics project Boost-Bot project. He advises robotics companies on market/ business development and financing issues (especially in bank meetings he can score points as a "neutral" third party due to his market knowledge). He is also available to potential users for a walk-through of your production/manufacturing or by phone based on photos/descriptions at a fixed price(detail) to then make concrete proposals for the use of cobots and other robots incl. funding opportunities. Both SMEs and large companies are visited. Among other things in Bavaria up to 31.12.20 a 50% investment promotion is conceivable. The standard book about Cobots comes also from him. In addition, he is very familiar with the KfW-Corona programs (incl. exemptions).