Midea and Yaskawa Marched into Chinese Elderly Market Together

Yaskawa Electric Corporation, a Japanese manufacturer of industrial robots, will cooperate with Chinese market in Chinese Midea Group to produce and sell nursing and rehabilitation robots. Both sides will make use of the robot control technologies of Yaskawa and the sales channels of Midea and plan to roll out 10-15 models by 2019. By 2025, the population of Chinese elderly above 65 years will exceed 200 million. In China where the elderly market is expanding rapidly, Yaskawa and Midea will expand the business of industrial robots and consumer robots at the same time.

The joint venture of Yaskawa and Midea--Guangdong Midea Yaskawa Service Robots Co., Ltd. will take charge of related business. At first, it was planned to roll out a bike style device used for rehabilitation of hands and feet by the end of May. Rehabilitation robots will be sold to facilities such as medical institutions and nursing centers across China. Its pre-selling price will be around 80,000 Yuan per set. In the future, it will also release bed style devices and automatic excretion devices used for rehabilitation of hands and feet, etc. By 2019, it will increase to 10-15 models. It planned to realize a sales amount of 500-600 million Yen by 2018 in the areas of nursing and rehabilitation robots.

Great Star Industrial Provides Robot System to Staples

Recently, at a noon Great Star Technology announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary Great Star Industrial USA, LLC and Staples Contract & Commercial, Inc. Signed a Robot Service Agreement. The former will provide the latter with brand new robot systems.

According to related materials, established in 1985, headquartered in the US, Staples is one of the Fortune 500 enterprises listed in the NASDAQ of the US and a globally leading office supply retailer and distributor. The company owns one of the most professional B-TO-B e-commerce platforms in the global field of office. It is committed to enabling clients across the world to purchase a complete variety of office supplies, office equipment, office furniture and various business services more easily. This time, the signing of the robot service agreement marks the beginning of the intelligentization of Staples’ global warehousing system.

Great Star Technology said, the signing of the agreement was also the beginning for smart robots of Great Star to enter the global market. The company will become one of the best providers of solutions and equipment for intelligentization of logistics and warehousing in the world (including China), which is a milestone for the company’s development in the field of robots.

Output of Japanese industrial robots hit a new height last year

On 25^th day of the month, Japanese Robot Industry Association announced that the domestic output of industrial robots in 2016 was 703.387 Yen (about 43.2 billion Yuan), which grew by 3.3% from 2015. This was the first time for the domestic output amount of Japanese industrial robots to break the threshold of 700 billion Yen in nine years.

It was reported that affected by the appreciation of Yen, the output amount of robots only witnessed a small growth though, the economic recovery of the US, the return of manufacturing industry and the high willingness of China to invest in automation have promoted the output amount of Japanese robots to exceed 700 billion Yen. The Association has set the output amount target of 2017 at 750 billion Yen, which is also the highest level in 11 years. It has also predicted that the favorable situation of Japanese robot industry will go on. In addition, the output of industrial robots in 2016 reached 174,606, growing 13.5% from the previous year, which was also the highest record created. Meanwhile, the shipment amount of 2016 grew 4.8% from 2015 to 716.022 billion Yen.

The analysis pointed out that the sales of Japanese robots to the automobile industry in Japan has stayed stable and the robots used for display panels and semi-conductor are also expected to resume supply. The tax preference policy has also promoted the production. As to the overseas market, other than its smoothness in export to the US, it has also witnessed a better performance in China and Europe.

11 robot innovation projects “highlighted” in the Dream Town

11 projects held a road show at the Hangzhou venue of Intel Robot Innovation Challenge Competition. These projects include a project of sea drilling unmanned ship operated by underwater robots, a new generation of UAV, Fitme, a smart assistant for personal life carried by Hangzhou Fitme AI and the industrial big data Internet of Things project of the service provider Broadnetwork which is committed to intelligent plant transformation.

According to the news from the administration committee of Future Sci-Tech City, the artificial intelligence represented by robot will be a key industry to develop in Future Science City. At present, the administration committee has planned a space of about 7.83 km2 at the Nanhu Plot of Future Sci-Tech City (Overseas High-level Talents Innovation Park) for the construction of an AI Town.