Korea Aims to be among the World’s Top 3 in Industrial Robots
They say that in the near future, robots will do most of the work for us. For that nice future, the whole world is ceaselessly researching on robots even now. That would be the same for industrial robots, right? Researches on robots in the industrial sites are actively going on for the sake of saving manpower and decreasing expenses. Korea is also assiduously carrying on the researches to be the world’s top 3 for industrial robot producing country.
So where does Korea stand?
H Heavy Industry had the ceremony for the completion of its robot factory in Ulsan. The picture shows the industrial robots being installed in the factory.
A few days ago, H Heavy Industry expanded its industrial robot factory to be 3 times bigger and thus set out to join the world’s top 3. The ceremony for the announcement of the completion of its new robot factory of this production size of 4000 per year in Ulsan, was made on the 2nd of last month. This factory built inside its Ulsan company has transferred its existing factory and build a brand new factory in order to meet the increasing demands for robots in Korea and overseas. It is measure to show the size of 8,250 square meters, which is 3 times larger than the initial size.
As this factory is completed, the capacity for producing robots such as car assembly robots and LCD carrier robots has increased twice as much from 1,800 to 4,000 per year. Its goal is to enter the world’s top 3 in the field of producing industrial robots by increasing the size of production up to 5,000 in future. This company occupies 40% of Korean market for industrial robots and 9% of the global market, holding the fifth place in the world for the field of robots.
The general manager of Engine and Machinery Division of H Heavy Industry explained that the company grew as a global robot maker by continuously developing technologies ever since it began the robot business in last 1984 and that it will enter the world’s top 3 in the robot market by 2014 based on the increased capacity for production. The reason why H Heavy Industry grows its capacity to produce industrial robots like this is because it expects the size of the global market for robots to increase. According to the robot statistics of Japanese Fuji Economy, the size of the global market for robot will be expanded up to 4.1 billion dollars in 2011, 4.6 billion dollars in 2012, and 5.9 billion dollars in 2015.
The picture of intelligent service robot, introduced at the last robot exhibition
On the other hand, this company is the only one in Korea that produces industrial robots by independently developing them. Also, it has developed on its own twenty types of car assembly robots and ten types of LCD carrier robots and exports them to China, India, Brazil, and Europe. Last March, it had succeeded in domestically producing surgery robot for artificial joint first in Korea, so it plans to expand its business domain not only to the medical field but also to semiconductor and solar battery robot markets.
So where does Korea stand?”Let’s grow a global robot company built on dreams and courage”
Korean D Company has announced on the 25th of last month that it plans to develop itself as Korea’s best comprehensive robot company that puts together industrial robots and intelligent service robots. It already completed its 3,500 “pyeong” sized factory in Chungnam in July 2010, and soon it will newly build its second factory soon, expanding its size of production by active investment.
Especially the intelligent pet robot, Genibo, that was selected for the R Learning business of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and is used as learning material at educational institutions. They also explained that they had planned to launch a ubiquitous home robot that interacts with people. Also, in last January, it took over a Japanese robot company and entered the field of vacuum robot. It is a field of super-precise robot that is used in IT business like cutting-edge digital devices, and usually, Japanese companies occupy this field of cutting-edge technology.
A surgery robot for artificial joints, which is succeeded in domestic production, demonstrates a surgery.
Last year, this company recorded about 28 million dollars of sales, which increased 85% in comparison to the previous year, and about 2 million dollars of business profits. In this year, it has signed a contract for supplying the amount of 6 million dollars so far. It plans to achieve the additional sales of 133 million dollars until 2015. The president of this company, who recently visited its factory, said that the robot business is the one that contributes to the development of humankind and asked them to develop the company to a global robot business with dreams and courage.
Right now, the size of the robot market is only 9.4 billion dollars, but the prospect is that it will grow up to 100 billion dollars, propelled by the increase of income levels and the trend of living standards. Last December, the government announced ‘the strategy of becoming the world’s three robot powers’ with the purpose of fostering the robot business as the next-generation business following semiconductor and automobile. It is said that it is promoting a plan that it will increase the size of Korean robot market from a billion dollars to 20 billion dollars until 2018, expanding 20 times its size now.
I think the time when robots will do labor and work instead of humans, is near. On the other hand, however, I long for an analogue as the technology develops. The development of technology is also important, but humans will be happy when things are balanced. I expect the development of a robot that gives off the sense of analogue.
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