Yaskawa
Following two years of construction, Japanese technology group Yaskawa has now opened its new €25-million robot production facility with European robotics development centre in Kočevje, Slovenia. The plant is intended to supplement the existing production facilities in Japan and China and will account for around 80% of the European demand for Motoman robots.
The official opening ceremony, which involved speeches and a dance troupe, was attended by representatives from Yaskawa management, as well as Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sarec, and EU Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc amongst others.
“Slovenia and Japan are bound by a long tradition of economic cooperation. I am convinced that this factory will further strengthen our cooperation in future,” said Prime Minister Sarec in Kočevje and promised: “We will do our best to ensure that Slovenia remains an attractive investment location.”
The Yaskawa factory opening ceremony in Kočevje 2019
This is Yaskawa's third production facility across the world. It was built in response to the sharp rise in demand in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The ceremony's opening address was given by Masahiro Ogawa, Executive Officer of Yaskawa Electric Corp. and General Manager Robotics Division. In his speech, Mr Ogawa explained: “Our goal is to shorten supply chains and delivery times, to enable us to react faster to regional market requirements and our customers’ wishes – not only with the new plant, but also with a major European robotics development centre.” Bruno Schnekenburger, CEO & President of Yaskawa Europe, added: “With this investment we want to further strengthen direct contacts to customers in Europe and work even more closely on the path to Industry 4.0, not least through first-class customer service.”
The Kočevje production facility will mostly be making the Motoman GP (General Purpose) series of robot, with payloads varying from 7 to 225kg. The GP series includes compact and extremely efficient handling robots for high-speed joining, packaging and general handling applications.
The facility covers 12,000m², of which 10,000m² are for production. The new factory will have an annual production capacity of 10,000 Motoman robots and looks set to create 150 jobs in the region.
Yaskawa – with over 430,000 installed units - is one of the largest global players in the field of industrial robots and a leading international supplier of drive, automation and control technology, as well as components for the generation of alternative energy. The company is pursuing an ambitious expansion strategy in Europe. “Current investments in Slovenia, similar to those recently made in Germany, France and Sweden, constitute a strategic element of the Europe initiative of the Yaskawa Group, as anchored in our global corporate goals ‘Vision 2025’ ” says Manfred Stern, Regional Head Yaskawa Europe.
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