OnRobot, the Danish end-of-arm tooling specialist, is opening regional headquarters in Singapore.
OnRobot says it will closely focus on the growing demand of end-of-arm-tooling (EOAT) in robotics automation in Southeast Asia.
OnRobot specializes in EOAT for collaborative applications, where machines and humans come together to automate, for faster and cost-effective production.
OnRobot currently has nine products comprising grippers, sensors and tool changers.
The EOAT provider aims to reach 40 to 50 products, including grippers, sensors, vision and other technologies to enable collaborative robot solutions in Southeast Asia and across the world.
OnRobot plans to aggressively target Southeast Asia, especially Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia that have high industrial robot density.
With major demand in Southeast Asia coming from industries such as electronics, automotive and CNC machining, and with huge potential for collaborative automation, the region is an important market for OnRobot.
OnRobot’s CEO Enrico Krog Iversen, says: “On a global level, demand for EOAT is expected to rise as robots are increasingly adopted.
“OnRobot’s new regional headquarters in Singapore demonstrates our commitment to the robotics market in Southeast Asia and belief that the industry has strong regional growth potential.
“Singapore being the automation hub is ideal for OnRobot’s regional headquarters.
“Our focus will be to provide complete collaborative robot solutions in the Southeast Asian region to help manufacturers attain productivity while reducing costs and improving their ability to scale.”
Meanwhile, OnRobot has appointed James Taylor as general manager, APAC to lead the regional team, overseeing all commercial activities in APAC.
Taylor joins OnRobot from US-based Otis Elevator, where he was the senior director of new equipment innovation for the last three years. Prior to that, he spent 15 years in China, serving various establishments.
While in China, he was appointed the general manager for Universal Robots from 2014 to 2016.
At Universal Robots, he was instrumental in developing the business in China from start-up; established China offices, developed team and sales channels, created and executed the local business strategy.
James holds a BS in Biology from the US and a MBA from Rutgers Business School. He is also fluent in Mandarin.
OnRobot’s innovative Gecko Gripper recently won four prestigious awards, the 2019 Robotics Award at Hannover Messe, the silver award at the 2019 Edison Awards, the NED Innovations Award 2019 and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award 2018.
OnRobot’s comprehensive EOAT range has innovative gripping, sensing and tool changing systems for industrial automation.
The plug and produce tools have in-built features that offer simple programming and easy installation, making automation accessible and profitable for all sizes and types of manufacturers.
Iversen says: “Our award-winning Gecko Gripper uses micro-scaled fibrillar stalks that adhere to a surface using powerful van der Waals forces.
“This feature allows robots to pick up flat, smooth objects with significant energy savings over existing grippers.
“The gripper does not require compressed air to function which saves both cost and power and makes it a revolutionary product.”
OnRobot’s RG2 dual gripper can work and function without an operator present, which enables it to maximise productivity.
The company says it allows workers to allocate their time to different tasks and improves their working conditions.
For a leading CNC machines company, the single gripper had the cycle time of 27 seconds which was reduced to 12 seconds, using the RG2 dual gripper.
With the International Federation of Robotics forecasting a sharp growth in cobot sales from 4 percent to 34 percent of a $25billion market by 2025, a strong shift in favour of EOAT is widely expected.
This shift is expected to significantly affect Southeast Asia, a region where the automotive and electronics industries are booming, as collaborative robots and other industrial robots are deployed to boost efficiency and productivity.
A recent research estimates global sales of robotic end of arm tools will surpass $2 billion in 2019, up from $1.9 billion in 2018.
As EOAT becomes increasingly mainstream to drive collaborative applications, advanced EOAT will redefine collaborative robot solutions across various industries such as automotive, healthcare, and manufacturing.
With industrial ecosystem facing pressure to enhance productivity and cost-efficiency, the demand for EOAT is ever increasing.
With in-built intelligent features, versatility, flexibility, and its user-friendly nature, EOAT is easy-to-use, install, integrate and carry out automation.
This is very beneficial for the general workforce, especially in Southeast Asia because the workforce in the region has lower skill set as compared to other developed markets.
Workers generally do not have deep knowledge of robotics and its related functionality. This makes EOAT extremely cost-effective for businesses, as it will help existing workers adapt to the new technology easily.
OnRobot believes end-of-arm tools will become more and more important for collaborative applications as robots become a commodity.
