With the rise of intelligent manufacturing, modern manufacturing mode has become the general trend. Among them, automated production and flexible production have become the two development directions of manufacturing enterprises, and how to get through the automatic connection of production and logistics, how to adapt to the high-frequency production line changes, has become the top priority of enterprise transformation and upgrading.
In addition to the earlier application of industrial robots in automotive, 3C, household appliances, metal processing and other traditional fields, in recent years, the acceleration of automation trend in semiconductor, warehousing logistics, photovoltaic, lithium and other emerging industries, driving the growth of upstream industrial robot industry.
Recently, in the July industrial production data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of industrial robots in China reached 31,342 sets in July, up 42.3% year on year; From January to July, the output of domestic industrial robots was 205,094 sets, up 64.6% year-on-year. With the upgrading and transformation of downstream industries, industrial robot industry is embracing the opportunity of rapid development.
According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) classification, robots can be divided into industrial robots and service robots. Industrial robots are used in manufacturing production environment, and can be widely used in various production links of enterprises, such as welding, machining, handling, assembly, sorting, spraying, etc., mainly including human-machine collaboration robots and industrial mobile robots.
Driven by industrial automation and flexible production requirements, mobile robots are hot on the track. At the same time, developing countries represented by China are in a critical period of industrial transformation and upgrading, and the demand for automated logistics in manufacturing and storage scenes is increasingly prominent, which largely drives the demand for mobile robots.
According to statistics from China Mobile Robot Industry Alliance and New Strategy Mobile Robot Industry Research Institute, China's industrial application mobile robot (AGV/AMR) product sales increased from 11,300 units in 2016 to 41,000 units in 2020, with a compound annual growth rate of 38%. The market size also increased from 1.9 billion yuan in 2016 to 7.68 billion yuan in 2020, with a compound growth rate of 41.8%.
Among them, AMR (including laser SLAM and visual SLAM) robots are about 6,900 units, accounting for 16.83% of the overall market, and the market sales scale is about 1.4 billion yuan, accounting for 18% of the overall market scale. From the current market, AGV is still the mainstream, but AMR is growing rapidly.
Compared with AGV, AMR can better meet the needs of human-machine collaboration and flexible logistics. It can operate in a variety of complex and dynamic environments, with short product deployment cycles, flexible application scenarios and reduced costs. AMR has a huge space for growth under a variety of driving factors. Interact Analysis predicts that the AMR market has experienced double-digit growth for the past five years, and predicts that global mobile robot demand, revenue, and sales of AMR are expected to surpass THAT of AGV by 2022.
In 2020, AMR robots will be mainly applied in manufacturing fields such as 3C electronics, semiconductor, panel, new energy and photovoltaic, power plant and pharmaceutical industry. With the further maturity of AMR technology and the acceleration of manufacturing industry upgrading, AMR robots will gradually extend to a broader market in the future.
AMR enables Semiconductor Industry to Reduce Cost and Increase Efficiency
Reviewing the development history of AMR industry, since 2014, many AMR manufacturers have been born in China. After several years of development, the attention of industrial AMR track is increasing year by year, especially the attention of capital is continuously increasing, which not only brings capital and brand endorsement, but also magnifies the star effect in this field.
Started with AMR products manufacturer, a robot as an example, since it was founded in 2014, has focused on AMR technology and product research and development and market development, implementation, operation scheduling system, robot navigation and positioning algorithm controller, etc. A complete coverage of the core technology of independent research and development, nationwide and worldwide leading technology advantage, The main business is laser SLAM navigation AMR and factory warehouse integrated flexible industrial logistics solutions. In recent years, it has gained rapid growth and entered a period of rapid growth.
At present, reducing cost and increasing efficiency is a topic pursued by many enterprises in various industries. At present, affected by the epidemic and international situation, semiconductor chip shortage and demand will continue in the medium and long term. How to further release existing capacity and improve production efficiency has become the top priority of the entire semiconductor industry chain, and many semiconductor enterprises have begun to introduce flexible logistics layout.
According to Stenden Robot, the semiconductor industry process is complex, equipment precision requirements are high, the overall process involves hundreds of processes, among them, the use of industrial robots in the process of chip sealing and wafer production two scenes. Taking semiconductor sealing test as an example, crystal box handling and loading and unloading, ammunition clip handling and loading and unloading between processes, transfer between processes and automatic docking and loading and unloading of machines, auxiliary materials distribution, etc., are all common application scenarios of AMR.
Some point of view, in view of the current domestic market pattern, the semiconductor industry is not suitable for all manufacturers to develop, for enterprises with higher technical barriers, can be regarded as a good market segment. This is also an important reason for Stenden to enter the semiconductor circuit: one is based on their own technical genes, and the other is to solve the pain points of a certain segment of the circuit. "There are many scenarios in the semiconductor industry where mobile robots are not widely used," said Huang Youpeng, director of Stende Robotics Semiconductor Industry. "AMR not only meets simple material handling, but also meets customers' needs for automatic docking and loading and unloading between processes."
For semiconductor such discrete production process, the link of heavy and complicated, the production of flexible high and at the same time of operation there is a requirement for high precision industry, compared with high-profile into a greater level of production automation solution, warehouse, production logistics efficiency through ascension to promote the overall efficiency of ascension, is a kind of more economical, more efficient and more flexible ways of improvement.
Huang Youpeng pointed out: "In the process of further automation, many test and packaging manufacturers often face a variety of challenges: some equipment is not designed for automatic loading and unloading processing, it is difficult to achieve automatic management of WIP and data reading; Some factories are not equipped with the infrastructure required for automation (old equipment does not meet SECS/GEM standards, network interface is few, machines cannot meet the requirements of automatic docking, etc.); At the same time, there are also tray, material box and other vehicles such as large differences. Therefore, a quality AMR supplier for the semiconductor industry also needs to have strong software system capabilities, equipment modification and automation solution integration capabilities."
Ostend, for example, the robot dispatching management system not only guarantee the efficient of the robot coordinated operation, also with MES, ERP and other business systems and control management system for seamless docking, through a user friendly operation interface will material location, logistics/production tasks, such as information visualization, power production decision and the process of optimization, Realize the synchronization promotion of automation and informatization.
From the status quo of industry development, Stenden robot in semiconductor this subdivision track occupied the leading edge.
Stende's advantage is also reflected in the implementation of the project. Take the flexible logistics transformation project of a leading semiconductor enterprise in China as an example: After the new factory is officially put into operation, the enterprise hopes to transport the wafers after sorting in the original factory across the factory. Due to the long distance between the old and new factories, manual material handling is labor-intensive and time-consuming; Manual handling is inefficient and unstable, which brings hidden dangers to the stability of production rhythm, and involves long-distance transportation, fragile materials, and challenges such as the docking of multiple equipment and facilities. Ordinary automated logistics means cannot meet the needs of enterprises.
In this regard, the company chose Stenden AMR, and its self-developed laser SLAM navigation AMR showed good adaptability in warehousing, production line and logistics links. At the same time, different from the traditional AGV, Stenden AMR can achieve independent positioning and navigation without laying magnetic strip, TWO-DIMENSIONAL code and other auxiliary objects, which can better meet the high requirements of wafer manufacturing enterprises for production environment cleanliness. In addition, Stenden has added software systems and functions such as FMS scheduling system, central control system, Matrix system, custom call function to the technology portfolio. After the introduction of flexible logistics scheme, Stenden robot for the enterprise to achieve logistics staff reduction, manual load reduction, efficiency improvement, automation and information synchronization upgrade.
This case is a typical application of AMR in the semiconductor production process. Wafer handling through AMR can greatly reduce the number of mover workers, improve the handling efficiency, solve the problem of recruiting workers in the expansion plant, and achieve the purpose of automatic upgrading, cost reduction and efficiency increase. With a suite of solutions, Stenden Robotics is helping the semiconductor industry take a critical step forward in expanding plants, expanding capacity and increasing efficiency.
However, AMR Enterprises wants to create greater value for its semiconductor customers not only by meeting the needs of efficient automated logistics, but also by providing digital operations management support.
Huang Youpeng said, combining the research laser SLAM navigation of mobile robot and FMS scheduling system, puts forward the innovative robots stender's conform to industry across the scene more flexible industrial logistics solutions, help enterprises to realize raw materials for the up-down material - production line - line edge storehouse in the product process flow between up and down between the machine automatic docking process and the material - finished product outbound logistics automation, At the same time, real-time tracking and recording of production and logistics data, while realizing automation of production data visualization. Under the background of "integration of the two", it lays the foundation for enterprises to realize industrial interconnection.
Integrated application capability becomes the future trend of robot industry
With the increasing complexity of manufacturing inside factories, the demand for flexibility of automation equipment is also more urgent. Compared with the single function of AGV/AMR and manipulator, the composite robot combining the characteristics of both is obviously more flexible and can better meet the needs of the industry.
The composite robot looks like a simple addition of an AMR and a robotic arm, but getting the two devices to work together stably is not easy. In addition to integrating systems from both sides, enterprises need to have sufficient technical accumulation, ensuring that multi-party devices cooperate to meet specific requirements in complex scenarios is also a major challenge for integration. For example, in the scenario of semiconductor workshop, it is necessary to complete the task of moving, handling and retrieving materials, and also need to be incorporated into the production line process to undertake specific processing operations (such as loading and unloading, visual inspection, material removal, etc.). Therefore, the environmental adaptability of AMR, the openness of cooperative manipulator and the integration ability of integrators are all required.
High industry research institute believes that for each AMR makers, integrated application ability is a necessary skill, on the premise of getting the product itself, the integrated application ability was AMR manufacturers can better service to the end customer and help integrators cooperation partners, the key to ensure the skills TAB in the short term can be defined as "tag", The future may become a "development label".
Huang Youpeng also said that as the non-standard application equipment of the To B end, the improvement and improvement of the product itself needs To be trial-and-error, polishing and iteration in the actual scene, and the company needs To have the ability of non-standard equipment design, transformation and development, integrated application and project implementation.
As can be seen from the development history of Stenden Robot, in the past few years, it has been focused on making "legs" in factories, that is, autonomous mobile robots, to solve the needs of logistics handling in the upgrade of factory automation. In recent years, through the integration of upstream and downstream partner products, combined with self-developed laser SLAM navigation AMR and RIoT intelligent software system, Stenden robot has gradually accumulated the ability to provide flexible logistics overall solutions from a number of complete solutions.
Huang Youpeng stressed that the flexible industrial logistics should have systematic thinking, a single scene of maximizing efficiency does not mean can maximize efficiency in the whole scene, should pass through the warehouse and production line between the transportation and process of the machine automatic up-down material and each production link of docking system information, the Internet to realize the whole logistics automation. This is also the reason why Stende can achieve rapid development. Stende takes AMR as the entry point to complete the basic tasks of material handling and distribution, and then strives to build semiconductor unmanned factories by cooperating with industrial chain enterprises through ecological cooperation.
Looking forward to the development momentum of the industrial robot market, Huang Youpeng told the author that under the impact of the epidemic, the industry has increased the demand for industrial robots. In the post-epidemic era, the wave of enterprise automation transformation is coming rapidly, accelerating the speed of "machine replacement" in manufacturing enterprises, and industrial robot manufacturers actively seize the market.
According to a study by Microsoft and IDC, 63% of Chinese enterprises have accelerated their digitization process due to the epidemic. According to the 2021 China manufacturing Trend analysis released by IDC, 60% of Chinese enterprises have significantly increased investment in data governance, digital engineering and operations in order to achieve independent operation capabilities.
Obviously, it has become a long-term strategy for manufacturing factories to accelerate their digitalization and automation transformation, reduce the number of workshop employees, improve their digital skills, and improve production efficiency and product quality in the post-epidemic era. In this context, the demand for mobile robots will show a rapid growth trend.
Stende Robot has grown from a single link equipment supplier to a logistics solution provider leading the flexible transformation of smart factory, and is expected to accelerate its development in the new market opportunities.
Write in the last
Throughout the development process of the mobile robot industry, the period from 2015 to 2019 is a period of rapid development with savage growth. Since 2020, the industry standards jointly formulated by the enterprises in the industry have gradually led the industry into a healthy development mode based on rules and rationality.
At the same time, the mobile robot industry has a broad field and many tracks, and some "expert enterprises" will emerge in many market segments in the future. Therefore, enterprises should focus on their advantageous technologies, products and industries according to their understanding of the characteristics of the industry, so as to achieve sustainable development.
, based on a deep understanding of flexible logistics needs of different industries, in the direction of robot hardware product innovation put forward 1 + N + X = driven up ideas, to "create a standard mobile robot platform + N + depth to embrace mobile robot derivatives industry demand" strategy, to customers continue to provide more advanced intelligent mobile robot, Flexible interconnection of different process equipment in the factory at the logistics level. In the direction of software products, we help customers realize intelligent manufacturing step by step through a clear and visible path by realizing interconnection and coordination of massive equipment in intelligent factories and interconnection of vertical information systems.
Of course, the practice of industry 4.0 is far from enough to rely on the strength of a single enterprise, and the industrial ecology of digital logistics has become the general trend. Stende Robot unites with enterprises in different fields of upstream and downstream to build a flexible intelligent manufacturing ecosystem, form an industry-level end-to-end logistics solution capability, and jointly assist the transformation of industrial manufacturing digitalization and automation.
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