Automation 'can improve safety'

By Shi Jing in Shanghai (China Daily) Updated: 2014-08-07 07:14

"A company should not only keep an eye on investment at present. It should think about bringing changes to the company with the investment in equipment. Only in this way can a manufacturing company have long-term development based on the current economic situation," he said.

Between 2004 and 2010, the compound annual growth rate of the number of installed robots reached 27.5 percent in China, according to the China Robots Industry Alliance. It is expected that the compound annual growth rate for the demand for robots will exceed 25 percent by 2015. The market size of the Chinese robotics industry will reach 50 billion yuan by the end of 2025.

The central government has also been very supportive. In late December, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released guidelines for promoting the use of industrial robots.

President Xi Jinping reiterated at a meeting in early July that the technical level and manufacturing capability of Chinese robots should be improved as soon as possible in order to take the lion's share of the market.

As the industrial manufacturing process has become more flexible, the cooperation between humans and machines is becoming more important.

Stefan Sack, CEO of COMAU China, a leading Italian multinational company known for its industrial robots, said at round table meeting of the 2014 China International Robot Show that human-machine collaboration will become a decisive factor for the mass production of robots.

"The breakthrough of the human-machine collaboration is just beginning. People without experience in using robots can program and integrate a robot in the process because it is capable of understanding human-like instructions and has modular plug-and-produce components," said Arturo Baroncelli, president of IFR.