United Robotics Group: New integrated robotics group (1/2)

Yesterday I was a guest at a major event. The organizer, the United Robotics Group, has the potential to become an important player in the robotics market. Internationally renowned robot brands such as Pepper (SoftBank Robotics Europe) or Sawyer (Rethink Robotics) have one thing in common: they are "members" of this very United Robotics Group. The United Robotics Group is the umbrella of various robotics companies and thus supports their cooperation and certainly in the future also sales. Unlike many venture-capital financed robotics companies, the group is owned by the Ruhrkohle Foundation , which thinks very long-term. The foundation is intended to finance the "eternity costs" of the former mining industry in the Ruhr region and at the same time support it in its transformation. For foreign readers: For decades, the Ruhr region was Germany's economic heartland, with hard coal mining and many large steel mills. Mining, which provided hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1960s, no longer exists today. The steel industry has shrunk considerably. As a result, many jobs were lost, younger residents in particular migrated, and the once rich region lost significant prosperity. (The author grew up in Duisburg, a city in the Ruhr region. The experience of the decline of the steel industry led him to become technologically "paranoid" and to move to Munich immediately after graduation. He still has ties to the Ruhr).

Pittsburgh as a role model?

The Asian Robotic Review featured the US region around Pittsburgh a few months ago: Hard hit by the decline of the steel industry, the city is now thriving again thanks to a growing robotics industry. Pittsburgh and the surrounding area are home to fewer than 1 million people. By contrast, 5 million people still live in the Ruhr region. Such a transformation as in Pittsburgh certainly seems to be on the minds of those responsible at the Ruhr Coal Foundation. The basic conditions for this are in place: The Ruhr has a large number of universities, an unchanged number of good mechanical engineering companies in the region and not such an overheated labor market as in Munich. In the Munich area, skilled workers are more often lured away with high salary increases. (When a well-known Munich robotics company introduced short-time work in the wake of Corona, another well-known Munich robotics company immediately poached a large proportion of its skilled workers).

Money is available

The strategy is clear, as will be shown below. The necessary money is available. The net assets of the foundation, which includes companies, real estate and much more, are probably close to 30 billion euros. The author estimates that a 3-digit million amount has already been spent on robotics so far. On the one hand for company acquisitions and then also to finance the obligatory start-up losses. Now it is becoming successively clearer where the journey will lead.

Group strategy

Thomas Hähn, CEO of United Robotics Group, outlined the group's strategy. Hähn founded a robotics integrator and automation specialist together with partners in 1992. Since 2014, the RAG Foundation has successively taken over today's HAHN Group. It employs about 1,600 people and in 2018 took over the assets of Rethink Robotics, which went bankrupt.

Hähn pointed out the broad know-how of the group, which contains great potential in view of the demographic development. Coming from industry, he sees opportunities for robotics in the social sector in particular. This includes both nursing/care and ultimately also activities in the catering trade or later in the household. Following the objective of the RAG Foundation, he announced the construction of a technology center on the former Opel site in Bochum. Organizationally it should be pointed out that the United Robotics Group counts the following companies among its members. The purely industrial HAHN-Group with its holdings, however, is not. However, HAHN-Group as well as United Robotics Group both belong to RSBG Automation & Technologies GmbH. The previously mentioned Rethink Robotics GmbH was sold by HAHN Group to United Robotics Group in March 2021.

The companies of the United Robotics Group cooperate with each other when necessary. That this should work was shown by the behavior among each other. Everyone seemed to know and also like each other.

In the following, the eight listed "members" are presented, spread over two contributions. In this article, reference is made only to Rethink Robotics. The cobot manufacturer has the clearest (still) industrial character.

Rethink Robotics

Rethink Robotics was founded roughly parallel to Universal Robots in the USA. In contrast to today's market leader, Rethink Robotics pursued the still ambitious approach of a robot with two arms ("Baxter"). He later got a colleague with "Sawyer". Both cobots were ahead of their time or the market and needed qualitative improvement. All this resulted in Rethink Robotics going bankrupt despite cumulative $150 million in investor money. DIes currently until 2018. In 2018, patents and trademark rights were taken over by the HAHN Group and the quality was adapted to German standards. The operating software, still considered very simple, was also improved. The German shareholders are believed to have invested 40 million euros to date.

A partnership was agreed with Siemens at the end of 2020: Siemens brings in robotics patents in exchange for share. Rethink Robotics moved to Bochum and announced a new Cobot for spring 2021(link). After spring 2021 passed without a new Cobot, I asked several times but could not report anything new. Subsequently, there were interesting deployments of the Sawyer in workshops for the disabled or even in hospital laboratories. Together with the partner Siemens, the first hospital laboratory worldwide had been automated.

So much for the origins and the recent past. With particular excitement I awaited the pitch from CEO Daniel Bunse - is there any info on new models? There was, although still scarce: Several cobots will be presented this year (no 1-cobot policy as with Agile Robots, Festo or Franka). Perhaps there will be more detailed information already at automatica, but definitely - according to Mr. Bunse in conversation - at Motek. The Motek, which will take place at the beginning of October, would thus have a first highlight.

Are we networking? LinkedIn
-> To the Cobot group on LinkedIn (Link) .

In my own right/advertisement
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.