Saving Robot: Turning Robots into Easy-to-Use "Tools"

The characteristics of cobots such as safety, easy operation, and flexible production make them able to cooperate with people and replace people to complete repetitive tasks with high positioning accuracy requirements. With the increase of market demand, collaborative robots continue to break through the boundaries of technology, deeply integrate with application scenarios in all walks of life, stimulate new kinetic energy, create new opportunities, and further break down the barriers of industrial and commercial application scenarios.

Saving Robot: Turning Robots into Easy-to-Use "Tools"

Collaborative robots, as the name suggests, are robots that can work together with people, giving full play to the efficiency of robots and human intelligence. In the macro context of the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the growth of demand for consumer-level products, collaborative robots are favored by the market and usher in a climax of development by virtue of their safety, ease of use, and human-machine collaboration.

According to the data of China's robot industry development report, in 2021, the global robot market size will continue to grow, and the annual market size is expected to reach 33.58 billion yuan. IFR data shows that from 2015 to 2025, the compound growth rate of traditional industrial robots is only 8.4%, while the compound growth rate of collaborative robots is 56.5%. In terms of shipments, this year, China's collaborative robots have shipped 14,372 units in the vertical field, accounting for 32.2% of the global market.

In 2020, the number of global collaborative robot manufacturers has exceeded 110, and the Chinese market has more than 75, and it is expected that by 2023, the number of collaborative robot manufacturers in the Chinese market will reach about 100 (1). In terms of market share, a number of domestic brands have made simultaneous efforts and have occupied about 70% of the share, and Shanghai Jieka Robot Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jieka") is one of the outstanding collaborative robot companies.

Creation and development

JAKA Card Robot, founded in 2014, is transliterated from the English name "JAKA" (Just Always Keep Amazing). In the early days of its establishment, Jieka focused on the main task of focusing on the business related to the application of collaborative robots, and constantly clarified the terminal needs of customers. Three years later, the collaborative robot products independently developed by Jieka were officially launched, and the JAKA Zu series of collaborative robots were publicly sold in 2017 and debuted at the 19th China International Industry Fair, which attracted the attention of the industry.

According to Chang Li, vice president of Jieka, the main task of Jieka from 2017 to 2019 is to deepen the specific industry and application prospects, and develop customers in combination with the characteristics of collaborative robots. After 2019, Jieka, which has accumulated certain industry experience and customer resources, began to expand regionally, and Jieka, which pursues the "key customer strategy", continues to reach in-depth cooperation with well-known enterprises around the world to establish value exchange. For example, it became Toyota's only supplier of collaborative robots in the world.

At the same time, Jieka is also constantly upgrading its own products, since the official launch of the product in 2017, Jieka has launched other series of collaborative robots. Up to now, there are more festival cards in terms of product matrix, product performance and scene coverage. JAKA Zu series collaborative robots (universal version, force control s version), JAKA All-in-one collaborative robots, JAKA Lens series vision products, etc., have good versatility and flexibility, which can be easily applied to industrial, commercial, service and other fields, and meet the needs of different application scenarios. It is worth mentioning that in October this year, the JAKA Zu 7 robot of Shanghai Jieka Robot Technology Co., Ltd. successfully passed the MTBF 30,000-hour evaluation, becoming the first manufacturer in the collaborative robot industry to pass the evaluation. MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) refers to the average time between failures, which is a measure of the reliability of a product.

With the achievements made in the integration of drive and control, integrated joints, drag programming, wireless interconnection, etc., the Jieka robot series products have been successfully applied to automated production in many industrial fields, providing a sustainable equipment foundation for innovation in the industrial field. In the third batch of "specialized, new and refined" small giant enterprises announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, the card-saving robot was also honorably selected. Jieka, which has become a "little giant" enterprise, will continue to focus on and deepen the field of collaborative robots for a long time, in order to make greater breakthroughs.

Stand-alone track

Why did she choose the collaborative robot track, Chang Li believes that the development of collaborative robots so far, although it cannot be compared with traditional industrial robots in terms of volume, but in terms of product technology routes and application scenarios, it has formed its own independence. "It can be understood that new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles, although they are both four-wheeled vehicles running on the road, are already two independent tracks." Chang Li made such an analogy.

The relatively independent track also means that the businesses in this track will have a broader space for development, which is reflected in the aspects of capital attention, market demand, and competition.

From the perspective of capital, collaborative robots have become the object of capital popularity. In the first half of 2021, there were 69 financing events in China's industrial robot-related fields, involving nearly 12 billion yuan. Among them, collaborative robots have become the object of popular capital. According to incomplete statistics, since 2021, there have been 12 financing cases in the field of collaborative robots, with a total financing amount of about 4 billion yuan, and most of them have entered the B round of financing stage (2). The performance of the festival card in the capital market this year has attracted widespread attention, public information shows that on November 15, the festival card robot officially announced that it has completed the C+ round of financing in the first half of this year. It is reported that this round of financing is jointly invested by a global industrial giant and China Development Bank Equipment Fund under Puluo Capital, and the financing funds will be used for technology research and development and global market expansion. In January this year, Jieka announced the completion of the C round of financing, with a financing amount of more than 300 million yuan, which was jointly led by the funds of CITIC Industry Fund and SDIC China Merchants, and followed by the old shareholder Fangguang Capital.

From the perspective of market demand, more human-machine collaboration demand scenarios have been found and activated, Chang Li believes that the future development space of collaborative robots is determined by the market they serve, which is mainly divided into two parts: industrial scenarios and commercial scenarios. The remarkable characteristics of collaborative robots such as miniaturization, safety, intelligence, and human-machine integration not only expand their application fields in industrial scenarios, but also enable them to enter the field of service robots and have direct contact with consumers, and have huge market potential in commercial scenarios such as consumer retail and medical care. "The increase in application scenarios is equivalent to the addition of new markets." Chang Li said.

From the perspective of competition, compared with other subdivisions such as multi-joint robots, parallel robots, and SCARA robots, which also belong to the category of industrial robots, manufacturers on the collaborative robot track started late.

Despite the booming market, there are still many questions about when the barrier from industrial to commercial will be completely overcome. But in any case, the festival card has firmly established its own development direction - instrumental development direction. Jieka believes that unlike the secondary configuration of "equipment", relatively standard "tools" can be widely used in various occasions. Under the background of the new normal economy, market uncertainties have increased, enterprise costs have increased, and it is urgent to build efficient and intelligent factories and upgrade production lines. The cobot combines software and hardware, with both hardware and independent control systems. On the basis of the original automation, intelligent technology equipment such as artificial intelligence high-end algorithms and sensors are superimposed to become the best carrier of intelligence. After "tooling", the cobot will change from "professional equipment" to a simple and easy-to-use "tool", and its universality will be greatly improved.

Strategic layout

Deeply cultivating the collaborative robot market, we have continuously improved our strategic layout in the development of the enterprise. According to the differentiated geographical advantages of different regions, five bases have been set up in Shanghai, Changzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Japan. The headquarters of Jieka is close to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the university provides enterprises with continuous and stable talent output and scientific research cooperation projects, "Therefore, Shanghai has played the role of a research and development center for Jieka." Chang Li said. Changzhou and Shenzhen, as manufacturing bases, are based on the mature manufacturing industry environment of the entire Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions. "The cobot itself is a light-payload robot, and light-payload robots are more used in areas where light industry is developed. The Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region have developed 3C and electronics industries, and the upstream and downstream of the supporting industrial chain are gathered, and the production-oriented talents are concentrated, which is suitable as a production and manufacturing center. "Overseas, Japan's layout not only improves the service system of Jieka, but also ensures that Jieka is at the forefront of global cutting-edge technology exchange and learning." There are two reasons for the choice of the Japan base, one is to better provide localized services to overseas customers, and the other is that Japan has always been at the forefront of the development of the robot industry and technology research and development. ”

In addition to the layout of multiple places, Jieka believes that the service is not limited to basic services such as after-sales maintenance in the traditional sense, but also needs to provide methods for the follow-up talent echelon training of the user group and set standards for the entire industry. To this end, JAKA has launched the "JAKA Academy" online training and special classes, which combine theory and practice through modular courses to provide step-by-step training in various places.

Jieka believes that enterprises should have the responsibility and obligation to popularize industry knowledge, and the courses of Jieka Academy are aimed at different customer groups to form a standardized knowledge system. On the R&D side, we can share and exchange cutting-edge technologies in the field of collaborative robots while promoting card-saving products. On the education side, the festival card course contributes to the cultivation of future vocational education talents in the country; On the use side, rather than providing customer after-sales service alone, helping user groups build independent learning and use capabilities, and cultivating robot engineers is the practice of "teaching them to fish".

At present, the development trend of manufacturing networking and intelligence is significant, the demand for discrete scenarios and safe human-machine collaboration is increasing, and the expansion of application demand in the downstream market ensures the future development of collaborative robots.

Saving Robot: Turning Robots into Easy-to-Use "Tools"

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