Platformization, containerization or the way to break the game

As technology advances and manufacturing costs decrease, the market acceptance of collaborative robots is increasing, and the competition is becoming more intense. According to GGII data, the number of global collaborative robot manufacturers in 2016 is about 30, of which the number of collaborative robot manufacturers in the Chinese market is about 15; By 2020, the number of collaborative robot manufacturers in the world will exceed 110, and the Chinese market will exceed 75.

“From the manufacturer’s point of view, we do not agree with the low-price substitution logic. Relying on a simple price war and low price strategy will not promote the continuous expansion of the scale of the collaborative robot market, and the concept of ‘cost performance’ that users attach importance to should first be ‘easy to use’ rather than ‘cheap’.” Cao Yu Nan said.

The development of domestic collaborative robots has also verified this logic. Compared with the famous veteran manufacturer – Denmark Youao Collaborative robot company (UR), the current sales of the first domestic collaborative robot in the domestic price did not reach half of UR products, can be said to have a considerable price advantage, but its sales are less than 50% of UR.

“This shows that the low-price strategy not only fails to seize the existing collaborative robot stock market, but also fails to develop replicable, batch application scenarios.” The collaborative robot market is characterized by a long tail, most of the demand will be concentrated in the stock market that has been developed, and the incremental market demand distributed in the tail is personalized and scattered, and these demands will add up to form a market larger than the stock market. To win this part of the market, the key is to ‘specialize’.” Cao Yu Nan said.

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In Cao Yunan’s view, collaborative robots are still only a tool to achieve automation or flexibility, and the explosion of the collaborative robot market requires the upper middle and lower reaches, that is, the collaboration of robot original manufacturers, robot accessories and ecology (all kinds of end-effectors, sensors, software), integrators, and end users. The application of collaborative robots needs to continue to be polished, but the advantages of platform have gradually emerged.

“Our strategy is to benchmark the international leading level and deepen product strength. Therefore, our new platform level CS collaborative robot is completely based on the new infrastructure, and the software including the operating interface and programming method, as well as the hardware including the instructor and robot body are fully upgraded, demonstrating the flexibility and openness of the new generation of collaborative robots, as well as the latest achievements of human-machine collaborative automation technology.” Cao Yu Nan said.

Cao Yu Nan believes that a firm bet on the platform will become a game-breaking road for the development of collaborative robot enterprises. “The essence of platformization is to provide a ‘easy to use’ carrier for users, integrators, end-effectors and software and hardware partners by creating easy-to-use, secure, flexible and scalable collaborative robot ontology products and operating systems, thereby simplifying the landing of collaborative robots from the technical end to the application end.” Cao Yu Nan said that the development of collaborative robots so far, the focus of competition is not in the product and cost, but in the response to the end demand.

“In the future, to further develop and realize the side-by-side work of robots and humans, from the perspective of robot ontology manufacturers, platform-based and containerized products are the key.” Cao Yu Nan said.