
OMRON mentioned its new robotics enterprise with be a vital pillar of its end-to-end automation techniques. | Supply: OMRON
OMRON Corp. has created a devoted international robotics group, efficient April 1. It mentioned this strategic step displays its continued dedication to robotics. The Kyoto, Japan-based firm mentioned the brand new unit will function alongside its automation enterprise, permitting them to enrich and reinforce one another.
Via this new group, OMRON mentioned it’s additional investing within the long-term success of its prospects by guaranteeing fast decision-making and world-class technical help, in addition to strengthening its specialised experience throughout Europe.
The funding contains the firm‘s Automation and Robotics Facilities of Excellence in Annecy, France; Barcelona, Spain; Dortmund, Germany; and the newly opened Automation Middle in Stuttgart, Germany. It additionally helps an in depth community of proof-of-concept (POC) labs that help native buyer innovation.
The specialised group in Europe consists of a devoted workforce of gross sales, utility, and companies engineers. They’ll function at each the European and nation ranges, and work carefully with the worldwide robotics group. The brand new setup will improve focused technical experience and permit OMRON to reply quicker to evolving buyer wants, asserted the machine maker.
The brand new group additionally strengthens ties with OMRON’s international analysis and improvement and robotics groups, alongside the newly established European R&D workforce. This helps quicker innovation and the supply of options which might be carefully aligned with the particular wants of European prospects, it mentioned.
Justin King, vp of product administration, advertising and marketing, and enterprise improvement at OMRON Robotics and Security Applied sciences, gave The Robotic Report additional perception into the corporate’s choice to determine the brand new group.
OMRON discusses new group’s goals
May you share extra concerning the strategic choice behind making a specialised robotics group? What hole or alternative out there are you addressing?
King: The creation of OMRON’s specialised robotics group wasn’t pushed by a selected market hole, however moderately by a need to boost how we serve our prospects.
This new construction is designed to streamline and specialize our method by extra carefully integrating worth creation – product improvement and manufacturing – with worth supply, together with gross sales, utility engineering, technical help, and repair. By bringing these features nearer collectively, we goal to offer extra tailor-made, responsive, and high-quality options to our robotics prospects.
Importantly, this initiative additionally advantages prospects throughout OMRON’s broader automation portfolio. By enabling our gross sales and help groups to develop deeper experience of their respective product traces, we’re elevating service high quality and buyer satisfaction in our automation choices as properly. The robotics and automation companies proceed to enrich one another, creating synergies that improve the general worth we ship as one OMRON.
Moreover, the brand new construction brings us nearer to our finish customers and companions by shortening the gap between prospects and the “manufacturing unit.” This nearer connection permits quicker response instances, deeper engagement, and extra agile decision-making, supported by standardized processes that drive consistency, effectivity, and innovation.
What are OMRON’s main imaginative and prescient and goals for this devoted robotics group? How do you see it driving buyer worth within the close to and long run?
King: The first imaginative and prescient of OMRON’s devoted robotics group is to foster deep specialization and seamless collaboration, enabling us to ship larger worth to prospects and companions around the globe, each now and sooner or later.
As talked about earlier, this group is designed to sharpen our concentrate on fixing our prospects’ most urgent automation challenges. These embrace addressing labor shortages, enhancing productiveness, enhancing operational effectivity, and guaranteeing office security.
By aligning our experience and sources round these core goals, we’re not solely enhancing our skill to reply to speedy buyer wants but additionally laying the muse for long-term innovation and partnership. This method ensures that we stay a trusted, forward-thinking automation companion as our prospects’ wants evolve.
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Challenges and alternatives for OMRON robotics
What robotics improvements does the group supply? Are there any new applied sciences in improvement?
King: With over 40 years of robotics experience, OMRON provides a strong portfolio that features autonomous cell robots or AMRs, collaborative robots or cobots, and industrial robots.
Previously two years, OMRON has launched a number of groundbreaking applied sciences:
- MD 650/900 Collection: A brand new medium-duty line of cell robots, augmenting OMRON’s current LD and HD techniques. The MD 650/900 fashions help masses as much as 900 kg with 360-degree security protection and ultra-fast charging capabilities.
- OL-450S: OMRON’s first AMR with omni-directional motion and an built-in elevate, the OL-450S helps a 450 kg payload, provides seamless deployment with current carts and trolleys, and comes normal with wi-fi charging.
All OMRON AMRs are powered by our industry-leading FLOW Core software program suite, which permits unified fleet administration and optimized operational effectivity.
Within the collaborative robotics area, OMRON just lately launched the TM25S, a high-performance cobot able to dealing with payloads as much as 25 kg with a attain of 1.9 meters—very best for palletizing and different demanding functions throughout numerous sectors.
Via these improvements, OMRON continues to ship sensible, scalable robotic options that remodel operations and drive measurable worth for our prospects.
Which industries are the important thing focus to your robots? Are you focusing on particular challenges or increasing into new sectors?
King: OMRON’s robotic options are primarily centered on 5 key industries: automotive and e-mobility, digital, medical, meals and commodities, and logistics. Inside these sectors, we help a variety of functions, together with palletizing and cell manipulator options.
Our aim is not only to develop particular person merchandise, but additionally to ship end-to-end options that handle real-world challenges tailor-made to the particular wants of every {industry}. Along with working straight with finish customers, we collaborate carefully with system integrators, OEMs, and channel companions to make sure seamless deployment and integration of our robotics applied sciences.
OMRON’s outlook for the following 5 years
Do you’ve gotten plans for collaborative initiatives or partnerships to make sure tailor-made options?
King: OMRON locations a robust emphasis on collaborative initiatives and strategic alliances to ship custom-made options for our prospects. We work carefully with finish customers, system integrators, and OEMs to realize a deep understanding of their distinctive challenges.
This collaborative method permits us to develop robotics options tailor-made to their wants. We then hunt down strategic alliances as required to boost our skill to ship these options. Examples embrace:
- Techman Robotic – a long-standing alliance for collaborative robots; OMRON additionally owns a roughly 10% stake in Techman.
- Lowpad – this alliance is the muse of the OL-450S, integrating OMRON’s FLOW Core software program with Lowpad’s low-profile cell robots to automate the motion of current carts and trolleys.
- Neura Robotics – initiated final 12 months, this alliance focuses on the potential for cognitive capabilities in industrial robotics.
Via these collaborations, OMRON stays dedicated to innovation and delivering specialised, value-driven options for our prospects.
Over the following 5 years, the place do you envision the robotics division’s progress trajectory can be? Do you’ve gotten enlargement targets in focus areas aside from Europe?
King: We anticipate a strong progress trajectory over the following 5 years, fueled by international developments resembling labor shortages and the demand for increased productiveness, operational effectivity, and elevated security requirements. These components proceed to drive the adoption of robotics and automation throughout a number of industries.
To help this progress, we’re making strategic organizational enhancements geared toward enhancing how we serve our prospects. Whereas Europe stays a key market, our progress technique is actually international. We have now already applied comparable organizational enhancements throughout the Americas, Japan, and Southeast Asia, with plans to develop these efforts into extra areas.
This international method ensures we’re well-positioned to satisfy the evolving wants of our prospects and to proceed delivering superior robotics options worldwide.