Munich Sometimes the inquiries come from the most remote regions: When many countries were in lockdown due to Corona, a beverage company from New Caledonia, an archipelago deep in the South Pacific, contacted the world market leader Fanuc. An older robot is broken. The arrival of a technician was impossible.
But the Japanese robot builder developed a solution, sent spare parts and special tools and had the repairs instructed via video chat. The Japanese are prepared for exceptional situations like this. “We keep every spare part for more than 25 years,” says Fanuc Europe boss Shinichi Tanzawa the Handelsblatt. In Europe, it takes less than 20 hours on average from calling a customer to repairing a robot. If production fails, every hour counts.
Reliability is a good selling point for Fanuc. Although the Japanese robot manufacturer has only been active in Europe since 1985, it should now also be the leader in Europe with a market share of a good 25 percent. Only the Swiss competitor ABB is roughly on par. Fanuc’s total sales in Europe are around one billion euros, with the robots likely accounting for around half of that.
CEO Tanzawa has set himself ambitious goals for the coming years and wants to continue to set himself apart from the competition. “We want to double robotics sales in Europe over the next ten years with double-digit growth rates,” he says.
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Fanuc also relies on further technological development and innovations. But the Japanese see their particular strength in the longevity of the robots, guaranteed service over the entire life cycle and the high availability of spare parts.
Spare parts for several decades
“Many underestimate the topic,” says Tanzawa. “However, many users only realize after a while how expensive maintenance can be.” Even if that makes work more difficult for sales, if in doubt they would rather repair a robot than sell the customer a new one. A not insignificant number of the 810,000 robots installed by Fanuc to date are more than 20 years old, and many are even older.
The Fanuc European boss wants to significantly increase the market shares in the coming years.
That’s why Fanuc stores the expected spare parts for more than 100 models in large warehouses for decades – a costly undertaking, as Tanzawa also admits. “But we guarantee lifetime service, and then the parts must also be available.”
More than 360,000 parts are currently stored in the European Fanuc repair warehouse in Luxembourg alone. Some have been there for 25 years, others should be ready for the newly delivered robots in the next 25 years. “Five years ago we were able to deliver 99 percent of the required parts immediately,” says Tanzawa. “Now we’re at 99.97 percent.” Out of 4,000 inquiries, only one cannot be served immediately.
A long service life of the machines is particularly important to European customers, says Tanzawa. In China, for many buyers, it’s enough for the robot to run for a few years. Japanese robot builders are dominant on the world market. A total of five of the ten largest manufacturers of industrial robots come from the Asian country. In addition to Fanuc, Yaskawa and Mitsubishi Electric are among the largest providers.
Strong competition in Europe
In Europe, however, the dominant Japanese manufacturers are facing strong competitors: ABB and Kuka, which now belongs to the Chinese Midea group, have a strong position among European car manufacturers, for example.
But Kuka was recently able to grow in other sectors. Sales improved last year by a good quarter to 3.3 billion euros. “We serve a growing global demand and are increasingly supporting customers outside of our classic markets such as the automotive sector,” said CEO Peter Mohnen. By 2025, KUKA intends to take on “the leading role in robot-based automation”.
The Japanese value an excellent supply of spare parts.
ABB’s robotics and factory automation sales grew 9 percent last year to $3.3 billion. Incoming orders even increased by 29 percent to 3.8 billion dollars. “It’s a good time to be in the robotics industry,” said new ABB robotics boss Marc Segura.
Fanuc wants to counteract this. The Japanese have big plans, especially with the collaborating robots that can work right next to people. “In the medium term, we want to become the clear market leader for cobots in Europe,” said Tanzawa when he recently presented the new CRX model series. These are already frequently used, especially for arc welding.
The issue of service and availability also plays a central role with these CRX robots. The series is designed to work maintenance-free for eight years. With other manufacturers, the arms often have to be replaced after a short time, says Tanzawa. This also delayed the breakthrough of the cobots, which experts had been expecting for a long time. “Ours last for many years, we test it intensively.”
Trend towards more automation
The robotics industry has been growing for many years, interrupted only by a corona dell. For 2021, the industry association IFR recently expected a new record sales of 435,000 robots sold. In 2024, the industry wants to install more than half a million machines for the first time.
In view of the problems in the supply chains that many companies have experienced during the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis, robot manufacturers in Europe are expecting additional demand. “There has been a trend for some time, for example, to bring some production back to Europe,” said Marc Segura, who heads ABB’s robotics division. “This effect will continue to intensify.” In view of the shortage of skilled workers and comparatively high personnel costs, a deepening of value creation in Europe should only be possible with a high degree of automation.
Fanuc Europe boss Tanzawa is also expecting a long-lasting boom. No one knows how the Ukraine war will affect customers’ willingness to invest in the short term. But the long-term trend is intact. Therefore, Fanuc wants to significantly increase capacities.
The robots are produced exclusively in Japan. Many are built for stock, Tanzawa said. If an order is placed from Europe, a robot will be sent immediately and adapted to the specific customer needs in Luxembourg. Own production in Europe is still not planned.
More: Robot manufacturers are expecting a boost in automation