Midea, Estun, Inovance: all the Chinese companies that produce robots
China is supporting the development of robot companies to speed up factory automation. The Le Monde article
The place is as much a workshop as a factory: many shelves, some test stations, three assembly lines about ten meters long each. On large metal dressers, white and green robotic arms pick up screws and bolts and insert them into the pieces. Welcome to CGXI, a start-up with 300 employees based in Wuxi, north of Shanghai, which produces "cobots" (a contraction of "robot" and "collaborative"), small industrial robots capable of working in collaboration with man. Here robots are robots. Paradoxically, the company has not yet achieved a high degree of automation, due to its small production volumes. However, thanks to funding from a public investment bank, the start-up is preparing to launch a new fully automated factory, whose industrial process “3.0” will be optimized for large-scale production.
HOW MUCH IS THE ROBOT MARKET WORTH
Because the market is huge: according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), by 2022 China will have installed 290,000 industrial robots, more than half of the world's installations. According to the China Electronics Institute, the market is expected to reach 11.5 billion dollars (about 10.7 billion euros) by 2024.
ROBOTS IN CHINA
The rapid automation of factories reflects an important transition. With the working-age population declining since 2010 and wages rising, the Middle Kingdom is no longer so attractive to multinationals looking for cheap labor. To remain the world's factory, it must move upward.
The authorities are well aware of this. As a result, there are dozens of support plans at both central and local levels. In 2015, Guangdong, a major industrial province in southeast China, adopted a plan to “replace humans with robots,” with a budget of 950 billion yuan (123 billion euros). And this determination has not wavered. In early 2023, the central government published a “Robot+ action plan” aimed at developing automation in most economic sectors, from industry to agriculture and healthcare.
With 322 robots per 10,000 workers, China is the fifth best-equipped country in the world, behind South Korea (1,000 per 10,000), Singapore, Japan and Germany, but ahead of the United States (272 per 10,000) and France. This equipment rate is even more surprising when you consider that labor costs in China remain much lower.
THE MOST ACTIVE COMPANIES (CHINESE AND OTHERS).
It's not about letting the benefits of these investments evaporate abroad. Since the launch of the Made in China 2025 plan in 2015, Beijing has aimed to replace imported robots with Chinese technology. Since then, local producers have more than doubled their market share, from 17.5% in 2015 to 35.5% in 2022, according to MIR Databank.
The acquisition of the German champion Kuka for 4.5 billion euros in 2016 by Midea, one of the main Chinese manufacturers of household appliances, had already demonstrated the country's interest in this sector. The sector is still dominated by established manufacturers such as Switzerland's ABB and Japan's Fanuc and Yaskawa, but Chinese companies such as Estun and Inovance are gaining market share.
When choosing a robot, manufacturers look in particular at the speed and precision of movements, as well as the mean time between failures, a criterion in which the years of experience of established manufacturers still make a difference, was explained in the corridors of a “robotics fair” organized by the city of Nanjing, north of Shanghai, in mid-December 2023.
Major international brands and their emerging local competitors – Estun, Chaifu, Siasun – and some start-ups, such as CGXI, were present, demonstrating the enthusiasm of manufacturers and authorities for this sector. “Our boss is close to an official in Nanjing, and that's how he was able to launch our start-up, with the collaboration of the local government,” said the representative of a young company with 80 employees that produces small automatic vehicles for the transportation of loads. Another operator offered robots equipped with cameras and used for quality control, particularly in the semiconductor industry.
THE CONNECTION WITH THE ELECTRIC CAR INDUSTRY
According to the IFR, the electronics sector accounts for a third of all robot installations in China. Behind them are the automotive and renewable energy sectors. While established players dominate the machines used in the traditional automotive sector, newcomers can carve out a space with electric vehicle manufacturers, which require new processes.
“Many new energy vehicle brands come from China and are more open to domestic supply chains. Some new players are trying their hand at Chinese robots, although use is limited,” explains Wang Feili, machine tool specialist at UBS securities.
INTELLIGENT FUNCTIONS
The world's number one electric vehicle maker, BYD, has purchased 20,000 robots by 2022, including 1,000 "cobots" from Chinese company Aubo, a competitor of CGXI. The CEO of this company, Wei Hongxing, estimates that his robots are made up of about 30% components produced in China, as reported by the business media Caixin. However, the company remains dependent on imports of electronic chips and software.
In Wuxi, CGXI is also focusing on the rapidly expanding “cobot” market. Unlike their cousins, which can carry heavy loads but must be protected by cages in factories, these small collaborative robots integrate easily into a production line.
A demonstration in the start-up's showroom, where the white and green robot stops at the slightest touch. Another clever feature is the ability to mimic movements. Just guide his “hand” and the machine learns the movement and can repeat it infinitely. A feature that can be used to paint a design on objects.
Founded in 2018 by Ji Feng, an engineer from a company specializing in industrial automation, the company produced its first robot two years later and sold one thousand units in 2023, mainly for the electronics (Huawei, Xiaomi) and automotive industries (BMW, Volkswagen).
The company aims to stand out for its service and software: “The qualification level of Chinese workers is lower than the European one, so we try to make machines that are easy to use,” underlines Mr. Ji, the boss, a man with a serious man in his forties, with glasses and black crew-cut hair.
Despite the economic slowdown, he hopes the market will continue to grow, especially in services: thanks to pressure sensors, his robots are able to prepare coffee or give massages, the boss says. In 2022, in the midst of Covid zero policy, CGXI was able to demonstrate the delicacy of its robots by equipping several Covid-19 test stations in the city with its articulated arms: “They were more delicate than humans!”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/produzione-robot-cina/ on Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:15:26 +0000.