MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Denmark-based collaborative robot technology company Universal Robots urged Filipino manufacturers to accelerate the adoption of robotic automation in order to remain competitive and efficient ahead of tough economic times after the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new class of robots, dubbed “collaborative robots” aims to bridge the gap between full-manual assembly and fully-automated manufacturing lines. Universal Robots highlights that cobots could potentially improve productivity for the Philippines’ manufacturing sector by up to 30 percent.
According to ABI Research, cobots are now the fastest-growing segment of industrial automation, with the yearly annual revenue for cobot arms expected to reach $11.8 billion by 2030.
“As the Philippines gears up for a national infrastructure building and improvement program, it will invariably include automation and artificial intelligence,” said Darrell Adams, Universal Robots’ head of Southeast Asia & Oceania.
According to Adams, cobots can easily be reprogrammed to solve new tasks to meet the short-run production challenge faced by companies, and the adoption of cobots may help boost innovation and capacity for small and medium enterprises (SME).
“Through Universal Robots’ cobots, we see greater consistency in our production output and minimal human error,” said director of operations at Benchmark Thailand, Boonlert Aukkarapichata, citing that they have improved operational efficiency by 25 percent and manufacturing space by 10 percent.
He added that operators have been transferred to higher-skilled jobs, involving complex assembly processes, following the integration of cobots in the production process.
